Going through this thread during my lunch break, I made the mistake of reading your kind words while taking a bite out of what I first thought was a juicy burger. Now my 1-chance appetite is forever gone.
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NO thank you sir i got some nuts in my cabinet so i donāt need your but thanks for your offer. 
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I owe you a burger. Iāll keep you in mind, apologies for my way with words.
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Not to take a stance on whether or not fulgore or jago should get nerfed, but I think some top or high-level players in this game have done a pretty good job of demonstrating why being good at the game doesnāt necessarily mean their opinion is any more correct or valuable than players worse than them.
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LMAO! 
While I mostly agree with you here that KI players donāt maximize all the time, itās probably important to keep in mind things like human error, nervousness in tournament, etc. Sako the one of the gods of execution dropped a combo against Daigo at CC, these things just happen. Also what exactly is optimal in Ki; isnāt that term subjective? In a general sense for sure doing something simple like punishing a failed counter break attempt with a heavy button into shadow instead of a throw is probably the best option, but arenāt there other things to consider like perhaps saving said bar of meter to bait an easy counter breaker with a shadow linker?
@SonicDolphin117 Also mentioned this earlier that Nicky and Thompxson are great examples of players who love to play the long combo/counter break risk game and their results in tournaments show how successful that play style can be; but what of the other successful players who choose to play the opposite short combo 1-chance no risk play like Sleep, myself, Rico, and many others who have also been successful with this style. How do we decide what is optimal if both styles have compelling evidence of being strong.
One last thing, I mentioned earlier that I feel Jago and Fuglore can negate a lot of risk due to the nature of the character design. Fulgore throws a bad fireball, who cares hes just DPs your good jump in. If Jago is losing the neutralā¦just full screen windkick into instinct to instantly get in, be + and then play 50/50s and pray you can prevent health gain. I have never once played Thomspon and never been able to deny more than 30% health gain. Even if I try to backdash, he just catches me with winkick again lol; not to mention the infinite meter build thatās going on for blocking that craziness. I mean if watching Nicky whiff 4 counter breakers on Thompson at SCR in the same match and still being able to win the game isnāt proof of Fulgoreās power to subsidize risk then idk what is.
Apparently Keits tweeted about a big Fuglore change coming soā¦hmmm I wonder what it could be 
@DurtyDee810 I have no idea why you havenāt been suspended from these forums yetā¦your posts are unacceptable.
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Cmon yāall. Maybe Iām not the ideal person to say so, but weāre better than this. @DurtyDee810, homie, I think you may just be misunderstanding @EctopicILLusions intentions. Letās all take a deep breath and carry on without getting the thread locked for belligerence. (We Michiganders run a bit warm blooded, eh?)
Fulgore is Fulgore. Itās okay for games to have very powerful characters with high skill requisites. Itās not like anyone can just pick up Fulgore and win free, but he is getting some sort of revision, so I guess weāll see how that goes?
Jago, howeverā¦ I donāt think itās good for a game for the fundamental āshotoā-type character to be any sort of weak. And the greater the quantity of basic elements of a FG that character can operate within and capitalize on, the better (without stepping into grappler territory, I suppose). That said, I donāt think Jago should be truly dominant any particular specialized aspect of gameplay either, except maybe excelling at the fireball-uppercut game (which Fulgore is stupidly better equipped). INSX healing is his gimmick, in addition to way better pressure/frame-trap game. Without INSX his pressure is still pretty damned good, but not best in show, for sure (not sure who gets that crown, but I honestly believe that Cinder is a contender). Considering his various damage/meter nerfs, which I think weāre on the right track, but the wrong targets, what do you, @EctopicILLusion think could be done to bring him in line with the aforementioned philosophy? Honestly, as much as I like it, I think youāre on to something w the idea of removing his +2f bonus from INSX. I didnāt like it at first, but the more I thought about it, the more sense it makes. So long as it doesnāt trickle down to his shadow brethrenā¦
Sorry if that doesnāt make sense. I am losing my mind in a hospital bed in week 2 w obnoxious mobile malfunctions.
Also, @CrazyLCD, Iām really not trying to be mean, but aside from Sleep, what of the one-chance players that find success, but demonstrably LESS important victories than those who play the combo game? I mean, can you really say that youāve been comparably successful as Thompxson or Nicky (excuses about character select aside)? Just sayingā¦
Iāve made top8/top3 at every offline tournament Iāve ever been to doing nothing but 1-chance breaks and rarely ever counter breaking maybe 1 a tournament. Iāve never been able to win a tournament but my consistency speaks for itself (despite my quote ābadā character choices).
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This is what Iām saying. I see one-chancers placing well, sure. But I see engagement in the combo game actually WINNING tourneys.
Also, fella, hush that noise. Orchid is legit.
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Imagine if I actually forced myself to play ātop tierā characters instead of the ones I like 
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[quote=āCrazyLCD, post:129, topic:16664ā]
Also mentioned this earlier that Nicky and Thompxson are great examples of players who love to play the long combo/counter break risk game and their results in tournaments show how successful that play style can be; but what of the other successful players who choose to play the opposite short combo 1-chance no risk play like Sleep, myself, Rico, and many others who have also been successful with this style. How do we decide what is optimal if both styles have compelling evidence of being strong. [/quote]
Why not try both? Iām not trying to say either style is better than the other. But if you havenāt noticed, there seems to way too much downplaying on one style compared to another. Iām just asking for some variety here.
LCD, cut the act. Nobody buys this.
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I think this has more to do with your great defense (your ability to not get hit in the 1st place) and others who, like you, also do short combos. Because you and others know that theyāre likely to do shorter combos, you donāt combo-break, so they donāt counter-break and vice versa. This is further compounded by the fact that many of the same people place in top 8 in many tournaments, so you largely go in knowing what to expect unless someone eventually changes it up.
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WAO! That was rude, I thought we were friends. 
I really donāt subscribe to that jazz. I think non-savants tend to play better w characters they vibe w as opposed to pimping tiers.
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On the internet, nobodyās a friend. Nobody can be trusted.
Kappa
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Of course, Iām not expecting any player in any game to be perfect all the time. What I am saying, though, is that if punishing counter breakers with big damage actually proves to be too difficult for most of the community, most of the time, then that has to factor into our analysis of how to use counter breakers. We canāt just keep insinuating that counter breakers are really this super huge risk if they actually arenāt!
Why would it be subjective? Optimal means āmost damageā. Thatās why I have optimal counter breaker combos listed on my guide, and why āoptimal punish comboā before the first break point can be calculated.
Our goal as players is always to play the most optimal possible, in situations that are super cut and dry like these. Doing anything else is playing provably badly.
If you want to talk about meter management, and whether using one bar of shadow on a punish combo is the best use of your meter, thenā¦ okay, letās talk about that. But it doesnāt change whether something is optimal or not.
(I think spending one bar as a punish after a heavy normal is one of the best uses of meter possible, by the way. The benefits are crazy high; at least 10% more raw damage, free increase in ender level, always a free manual of your choice, and low KV. Why do you think people dump shadow meter into linkers as soon as they see a lockout? This is basically the same thing, except you dump it into the combo before a break point is possible. If you look at my counter breaker combos, you will see the average damage increase between 0 ā 1 bar, and 1 ā 2 bar, is between 6-10% on average. So people definitely think a bar of shadow is worth ~10% damage. Why would it also not be worth 10% + free ender increase + free manual + low KV starter?)
Whoās to say these players wouldnāt a) win more tournaments or b) win their tournaments much more convincingly if they used longer combos and were more willing to counter break? Maybe your lack of long combos is whatās keeping you from getting over the hump in tournaments. Or maybe Sleep and Rico are overcoming their poor combo choices by being better in other areas. I donāt think you can just say ālook, someone won a tournament and they didnāt use long combosā as evidence that long combos arenāt a better option.
This whole conversation is me trying to leverage my 15 years studying and analyzing fighting games, and other āskill with a bit of varianceā games like poker, and trying to get you guys to look at the problem with the much bigger picture in mind. I mean, itās one thing to think Iām wrong (which is fine), but KI is not the first game that has this type of analysis in it, and I think itās a mistake to overlook analyses of the past because you are having a modicum of success in the present.
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Well, for all these high-level guys who hate counter breakers and playing the break game at all, fierce->shadow should basically be a no brainer wherever it is possible. They arenāt going to use the meter to bait counters and they arenāt driving their combos high enough to make shadow cashout particularly appealing, so yeah, fierce->shadow strikes me as pretty optimal.
Once you get into the combo game proper thereās an argument to be had about what really constitutes āoptimalā play, since by its nature KIās potential lifeswing is very fluid. Against an opponent who breaks at random times but always goes mediums, opener->heavy AD-> damage loop is optimal. Against your average high level opponent, I think a mix of reactables, unreactables (one chances and manual only quick combos), and resets is probably optimal. Always doing one chances is generally suboptimal though, just because always doing one chances fuels guess breaking, which fuels lockouts, and if you are not confirming lockouts then you are consistently leaving free damage damage on the table. Your gameplan may indeed still work, but you now need 8 openings to kill someone where you could have only needed 5. Against opponents with good defense, that actually matters.
And with regards to Sleepās success with a one-chance style, I would submit that heās often chosen characters who specifically excel in that playstyle. S2 Kan got consistent level 3ās on his one-chance combos, and Arbiterās damage ender does fantastic damage at lower levels and still gives you a setup. A perfect one-chance style (which Sleep doesnāt actually do, for the record), would probably still not be quite optimal with these characters, but they also would tend to get more reward from being played that way than the average character.
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Not even yourself.
kappa