@SonicDolphin117
If you can learn any other character besides Jago, you can learn Jago, the easiest character in the game to learn. he even has the tutorial built around him come on man, how did you not see THIS message coming?
And wow ■■■■ I just realized I was separating all of my replies. My bad guys, ■■■■■■■ pap bless the little help system they have to ensure everyone is operating at maximum forum-cy.
Do you not understand the concept of player style meshing with character design? You can know how to play jago without being able to use him as effectively as a character worse than him if the other character fits you better.
I see what your saying. But it’s experience. If your a “good” player (not saying you arent good if your not a god) you wont have issues learning an easier to play character than your main. Like. This should be as concrete as the laws of physics.
That doesn’t mean you’ll be able to be as effective with the easier character, man.
Man, some of us like variety. What’s the point about having 26 characters to only use one? If people’s goal is playing the best character, devs can save time: make only one character, and no more, so everyone plays him
I know how to play Jago, but compared to other characters, he feels boring. To me. My opinion. Even if Jago is the most OP character ever, I would prefer Aganos (which everyone agrees about being lower tier) over him.
Because I play for fun. And I like winning, of course. But if the price of winning is playing an IMO boring character… then I don’t want to take part of that.
And I say this keeping in mind that KI is very well balanced.
If people put preference in winning than having fun (ie: choosing to use a character because is good instead being the most fun to use for you)… then we are forgetting that videogames main goal is having fun, not winning “just because”
Just got done reading this thread. Fantastic stuff, and brings up a few of the points I’ve been ruminating on for a while. Note that none of what I say here is aimed at anyone in particular, I’m just rattling off thoughts.
I’m new to the KI scene. Only started playing with the release of S3, but I feel like I’ve advanced pretty far in such a short time compared to the rest of the scene.
I won’t say much in regards to Jago and Fulgore, other than the fact that they’re two of Riptor’s worst matchups to begin with. My feelings on them are likely obvious.
On optimization, that’s the one thing I’ve been striving for most. When Juicebox first started playing KI, I jumped on his stream like a ■■■■■ in heat, because I had heard he saw things differently, and I knew I could use the perspective. I taught him what I knew of Riptor and he turned right around and taught me a few new things that day. Since then, I’ve been dedicated to the lab. There was a passing interest here and there before (I think I was the first person to find you could use the recent b.HP juggle buff to get an easier recapture), but I hadn’t taken it all that seriously. Now I think the last 20 or so videos I’ve recorded have been for frame analysis, not for dank combos. Please, for the love of god, turn on attack data and hitboxes, and spend some time in the lab. Learn what you can and can’t do. What’s safe on block that you can frame trap with, what kinds of meaty setups you can utilize, what spacing you can safely punish from. More importantly, take the characters you have trouble with in and learn what they do, and how you can counter it. I learned that Clever Girl’s upper body invulnerability means she goes right under Cinder’s light DP. That was a huge moment for me, because I had felt it was one of Cinder’s most troublesome tools, and that meant it became one less thing for me to worry about so I could start focusing on other things. (No, it can’t be done on reaction, but it’s great for those Cinders that spam it on wakeup or after heavy Trailblazer.)
I also agree with LCD on one key point. Fierce xx shadow opener may be optimal for raw damage/punishment, but it’s not optimal for mindgames. Often, my opponent will whiff a counter break, I’ll start a basic non-metered combo and throw my own counter break. The frustration that can result from a whiffed CB can lead people to make their own mistake and try to break early, in an attempt to make up for the potentially lost ground. Using a shadow move for the opener to that combo gives them time to recollect themselves. This all still falls under the idea of risk assessment. How confident am I that they will take a risk, and am I willing to take a risk in response?
On the community and tournament scene: I came from Smash, Project M specifically. I came from a game that Nintendo deliberately tried (and basically succeeded) to push under the rug, yet they still attend tournaments in droves, even if they have to do it in secret. I’ve talked to the best of them. None of them are in it for the money, because they have already accepted there’s virtually no money to be made. They’re in it for the wonderful experience that attending major tournaments can be, and the fuzzy feeling of supporting the game that they love, and constantly improving at it and challenging each other to keep improving. And that’s the mindset that I’ve had coming in to KI, and I was almost shocked to see that it wasn’t a fully shared sentiment. I won’t say it doesn’t exist, but too many times I’ve seen people say they’re not attending a tournament because they’ll just go 0-2 and there’s no money in it. If you want a way to “make KI great again” and keep tournaments fresh and exciting, you need to start with the mindset. People need to commit to improvement. Play to learn, not to win. Or just play to have fun.
I’ll give one anecdotal example: GUTS 4, the CT tournament that I organized the KI portion of, happened last month. We had 22 entrants for KI, more than anyone expected me to get, and I was proud of myself for that. Project M had 80+. And these weren’t people that just signed up at the door because “why not”. They were for the most part seasoned players that I had come to know in my two plus years in the scene. Playing a game that will no longer get any updates because the dev team was literally shut down, just because it’s fun and they all wanted to learn and improve. Every fighting game scene should strive to be like Project M’s. Killer Instinct is my favorite game right now. Not just my favorite fighting game, my favorite game overall. And I want more than anything to see it succeed.
Side note: https://twitter.com/Kranged/status/807231011281141760
Textual stream tonight with details about Fulgore and Jago. So that’ll be fun.
I agree entirely with what your saying. Thank you for opening my eyes.
jago is shoto on crack, but still shoto. we been playing ken and ryu for more than 20 years now, so its understandable why hes boring. id love to play and learn jago, but i been down his path one time too many even despite all the amazing options hes got. so, id rather pummel jagos with hisako 
Fairness ends at the character select screen. Everyone has the same options to choose from on the character select screen. Is winning all you care about? Choose top tier, there’s nothing stopping you from doing so.
You think leffen fits that role better?
I love this post @OvisCantus 
@MathAmphetameme I would encourage you not to confuse ease of use for the upper skill limit of a character. Some characters require much more work to be successful, but are more than capable of destroying other easier characters to play (who might also be very good themselves) once “pinnacle” play is reached. S2 Kan-Ra was a good example of this.
@ItzTymeToDul I don’t follow melee enough to have a real opinion on leffen, but just in general I dislike the supposed “heels” of the the FGC. Just don’t have much tolerance for people being ■■■■■■■■.
We were talking about risk earlier correct?
I simply brought up an example of when avoiding “optimization” in favor of risk could be better since the argument was that KI players don’t play optimally…well there is a reason why that’s all. I’m not defending players who punish with throws, I’m simply providing insight. This whole thread has been about convincing players to play the counter break risk style and then we criticize our same players for not playing optimally…seems weird.
Playing optimally means avoiding risk imo.
And that’s where my disconnect is.
It does?
I dunno that this idea can be properly supported, considering every action in a FG is a risk, and playing with the lowest possible risk allows certain strategies to run over you (thus being decidedly unoptimal).
Think about it this way: if you knew the opponent was going to meaty you, DPing is 100% the optimal play. It doesn’t matter that it’s risky, because you have perfect information about the state, thus lowering (or removing) the risk. In the end, it’s just 15% free damage for you.
Optimal play is about making as many correct decisions as is humanly possible. Some of these decisions, like maximizing damage in punish situations, are easy to optimize and are not associated with risk at all. Some of them are much less easy to optimize, because we don’t have perfect information about our opponents, but many of the optimal choices will involve risk.
This is coming from my personal experience. Playing against Bass, DaytonJ, Raven, and Thompson’s Jago. They are equally strong, but Thompson just has some more dirty tech from longer experience. This doesn’t mean that the other players have a not so good Jago. All of these Jago’s give me a run for my money. It’s just the other players use their actual mains in tournament, but the work they’ve put into Jago is ridiculous (again, from experience).
Jago has been strong from Season 1, BUT idgaf about Thompson or Nicky winning. I’ve been to the tournaments and watched these hype matches. I’m frustrated with all 4 of these Jago players that know how to play it right. This doesn’t include THE ADDITIONS he has gotten since S3 and that is terrifying. Let’s just give Jago more tools even though he is already extremely solid as a character. My friend said the other day “Put him in any other fighter and he wouldn’t have a problem.” It’s true. He needs to be toned down.
I’m not going to switch. I have no interest in playing the strongest characters. It’s obvious that these are the strongest (good mixups, flipouts, teleports, good frame data, safe special moves). IDC if they play those characters. I HAVE LEARNT TO DEAL WITH THE MATCHUPS. But when the character has options for 99% of the cast…that’s when things need to be reconsidered. Cinder has unsafe specials, poor normals, poor frame data on those normals. However, I still love playing him because he is mad fun even if it is a struggle.
I’m not throwing out the case “they are winning b/c of the character”. Nope. They are good players and I can’t deny that. But you shouldn’t deny that there is solid evidence that these characters are a bit ridiculous (most top players will agree). We aren’t discrediting the player since we learn to handle it since it is part of the game…but some of these changes in S3 has started to turn us away from KI.
I’m here to win, but I’m also here to have fun. I don’t want to force myself to play other characters that I know will struggle less. Nope, I’d rather play Cinder and Shadow Jago. Both do sub optimal damage without very good reads, but can also be terrifying if played correctly. I have to do my best to conceal my weaknesses and focus on making the opponent play my game. Some characters don’t have or have very little weakness to hide (jago/fulgore).
Regardless of whether or not we agree on your other points, let’s not pretend like this is evidence of anything, whatsoever, as the same could be said of literally the entire cast. This is KI, after all, where the general overarching design philosophy seems to be “to the max”.
Let’s at least make sound and rational arguments. 
[quote=“EctopicILLusion, post:176, topic:16664”]
My friend said the other day “Put him in any other fighter and he wouldn’t have a problem.” It’s true. He needs to be toned down.
[/quote]You shouldn’t judge a character in this game based upon how he would do in other FGs…
EDIT: Darn, someone beat me to it.
That’s true, but it’s just another thing to add to the argument.
Have you seen the frame data on Jago and Fulgore? The options they have!?
You can still make other characters work obviously. Bass made Spinal work for EVO post nerf and he made 2nd (even though he thought Spinal was trash). However, his fundamentals are so strong compared to most KI players that he outplayed everyone else.
You can make any character in the game work, but there’s no doubt that since S3 released, there are a couple characters that got some extra love and a happy ending while others not so much.
This is why Fulgore is getting a big change in the near future and hopefully Jago will be looked at again. The recent patch with the Jago nerf was definitely a step in the right direction. Just a slight adjustment and I believe he will be fine.
But, that’s just my dream. For now I’ll live with the MU as is (since I’ve learnt the Jago MU pretty well).
I’m just voicing my opinion. I’m not crying for nerfs. I’ve accepted the game for what it is atm and that’s what top players need to do when moving forward. However, I can try and talk about it.
There’s no denying a lot of people have been losing interest sadly.
While I don’t necessarily believe Jago needs more nerfs (at least not major), I do mostly agree w you. He is very strong, and yes, I’ve seen the frame data. I’m just saying that particular line of reasoning doesn’t add to the argument at all, in fact it weakens the argument by suggesting that you must reach beyond context to maintain your position.
^^^^^
Fulgore change will just be Killgore Ultimate BECAUSE WE DON’T NEED ONLINE TRAINING AMIRIGHT (haha kms). The casual scene is larger than the competitive scene.
Proof:
No BIG feature reveals in this textual stream. Good news is we know what you ultimately want… the results of the #killerinstinct survey.
— Kranged (@Kranged) December 9, 2016