New windkick strategies post 3.7?

So… what do we do? Unless they change the hitbox for light wind kick to extend its range, I feel we are in a lot of trouble. And hit-confirming from a heavy normal into medium wind kick is going to be super hard. Sure, the move low crushes, but I only see that when you know your opponent is using a low- hitting special as that can be seen.

Do we just try and bully with fireballs or normals into fireballs cancels to keep an opponent out? I’m stuck trying to figure out what to do. Sticking with light wind kick up close isn’t too bad so that is the first thing I plan on doing. I just am at a loss for other characters that can keep away or have long normals such as Tusk.

Only thing that will make this easier is if they give Jago a stagger on neck cutter. But I don’t think that will happen.

Get closer and use laser sword or fireball from a distance, the whole point was to weaken him at that specific Windkick range.

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Dude… . . .you still have options. Just use your fierce normals to instigate whiff punish attempts. Use your fireballs too protect your horizontal approach. When out of specific range dash in.

Jago had really good tools to get in horizontally. Using sidekick allowed him to get in, get in offensively, and be safe enough to take his turn by force (dp) if need be. Don’t be afraid to get creative. This change really doesn’t hurt jago, it only hurts how YOU USED TO PLAY HIM.

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This needs to be shouted from the rooftops.

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Drop Jago, move on to Aria.

Lol, in all seriousness. Medium punch > Endo > Medium punch > Endo > Move up slightly > repeat.

You will abuse your opponent with Jago’s sword range, fierce is great but comes out slow, use medium sword instead and only use fierce to close the distance or when too far. During their block string, insinuate that all you know how to do is this block string before you cancel your endo into either a low or overhead.

Laser sword is great for baiting shadow counters and continued block strings, but because it isn’t a normal you cannot cancel into an endo. So use it sparingly but more than windkicks now.

Be mindful of using overheads into hit confirms now because its decreased range and longer startup. You may not want to use it so much from a distance as much as you may want to use it after a canceled block string.

Only problem will be him getting in on zoners who have an easy time moving side from side, like Kan-Ra or Kilgore… though Kilgore won’t have it as easy anymore. Lots of developing information to test at the moment.

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To close the distance: cover your windkick with a fireball, watch out for shadow counters .
Windkick will catch people the same way it used to, specially if you are reading a backdash.

But it is, by definition, a nerf to jago. Regardless of whether it’s coverable by a playstyle change, it’s still a nerf to jago. By the same logic arbiter never got nerfed, just the player’s who did one chances and gunloops did

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You’re missing the point. Yes it’s a nerf. No it’s not the end of the world. Suck it up and use his still phenomenal toolset.

Honestly, I’m a little surprised it took this long to nerf. Not too many advancing moves are outright safe/situationally safe on block. The fact Jago’s was surprised me but I worked around it.

I don’t even play jago? But sure I’ll suck up something that doesn’t affect me. I think it’s quite sad that the only response so far has been “g-git gud xd” rather than actual discussion on how to use how “phenomenal toolkit”

also like half the cast has forward moving safe specials. The only difference is jago has the most punishing negative frame trap with his meterless dp

Thought I covered some good points myself without saying, “get gud,” was I wrong?

Having a punishable forward moving special is actually the exception in KI, not the norm. Virtually every other character I can think of has a forward moving special that is only marginally negative (or 0) on block.

I think it’s a really huge loss to his toolkit, because he doesn’t have safe openers unless more or less point blank now. For a character that doesn’t close the gap vs zoners well (and now fights at midrange worse), that’s a pretty big deal.

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i didn’t mean literally all, just that from notes to now it’s been overwhelmingly “look at these plebs who use mk windkick”

PREEEEEEETTY MUCH! Oh well. I guess that will be his weakness now. He never truly had bad matchups before, this could be their way of forcing some. Makes sense, though I am still upset by it. Let’s just hope they don’t make his DP lose its invulnerability like Thunder’s. If that is ever the case, we may have just copied current Ryu from SFV and plopped him in KI.

Yeah, I suppose that’s true. Look at it this way, Jago was not a very liked character by most people. His nerfs came as an upset to those who main him, but a pleasure to those who don’t. Any argument against the changes that general and illogical are usually met with insults and mockery.

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I actually don’t really believe this was true, tbh. Some people like to exaggerate and say this, but I think he lost some matchups and went even with a large number of others. The matchup is new but I can see him losing to Kilgore more than just slightly, and I never thought he had a particularly good fight vs Aria. The Glacius buffs last patch will cause him to struggle in that match too (even if Jago was not touched). Thompson is really strong and makes a lot of matchups look easier than they are, IMO.

But yes, now if there are characters that have very strong mid range (like Wulf), I think Jago will struggle quite a bit with them.

And I don’t think there is any way Jago ever loses invincibility on DP.

Eh… people dislike the current top tier, no matter who they are. I think Thunder was a much more frustrating high tier character than Jago, and since he was untouched now people will shift their attention to him. If Thunder gets nerfed, they’ll switch to Aria (and probably have decent reason for it). Eventually you nerf all the top tiers and then people start to complain about the best of the mid tier, and you have a much less fun game but no less complaining.

I personally think Jago was in a good spot save for slight nerfs to overhead and healing; I thought he was a “good” top tier character for the game, winning less on gimmicks and more on solid play (so that we can have a nice mix of gimmicky top tiers and solid play top tiers). Different people can disagree, I suppose, but I’m surprised they thought Jago was so much of a threat that they gutted an important mid range tool.

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There has been discussion. It may help if you don’t ignore it. I also wasn’t specifically calling out any Jago or non-Jago player, just making a more general statement that I would to anyone discussing nerfs. And finally…

I did call out situationally safe, which may still work at certain strengths of wind kick. And regardless… half? Half have blanket, safe, advancing moves? By all means, here’s the list.

Fill it in for me, would ya?

  1. Sabrewulf
  2. Sadira
  3. Orchid
  4. Fulgore
  5. Spinal
  6. TJ Combo
  7. Maya
  8. Riptor
  9. Omen
  10. Aria
  11. Kim
  12. Tusk
  13. Arbiter (plus!)
  14. Kilgore (overheat)
  15. Mira (a bunch, can be plus)
  16. Rash

Situationally safe:
Glacius
Gargos
Shadow Jago (kinda)
Eyedol (both warrior and mage, depending on pips and spacing)

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Fair enough, the misconception of no bad matchups was generated by the way Thompson played, but not so much how Jago plays. I have always found he struggled against Glacius, Maya, Kilgore, Aria and Wulf. I suppose it’s one of those things that I have been trying to emphasis…

If someone was already godlike with Jago, naturally, they knew how to abuse and control most-all matchups. However, for someone who is mid-tiered, in terms of skill like myself, these types of nerfs are detrimental being that they make a tough matchup even tougher.

I don’t mind having to be thoughtful of my approach, but not so much if my approach is being abused in a sense of heavy zoners or lackluster mid-ranged tools to get in, now being punishable. His already linear playstyle makes it even tougher as tools once relied on are going to be senseless to use. It’s a change, but no doubt will drop him amongst his tier status. My only salty argument in response is where are the Aria nerfs?

I disagree, somewhat. No one likes top-tier characters because they are more “brain-dead” characters. Though, as a Jago main myself going into matches, using his toolset vs using those of others that are somewhat “brain-dead,” Jago got the blunt of it. Mainly the combination of his DP and his healing. Regardless, with enough time those decent Jago players got good, and then great. Amazing fundamentals, solid reads, you name it. Now, the shift to measure “true skill” resulted in nerfs so that Jago players approach a situation more “thoughtfully.”

Yeah, I’m still bummed out myself. I HATE gimmicks online. Fun to do in practice or single-player, but I enjoy a pure and honest fundamental reward. I get the right read I do the damage. Mixups are important but I don’t like being forced to rely solely on them. You’re right though, it is less fun now. Because every character is incredibly different from the other, Jago is the only one closest to Ryu. So it is a shame to have such drastic nerfs because the community or developers felt threatened that they needed to cripple him… throughout the season.

Well, I’ve been proven to be an ■■■. I suppose I thought too narrow-mindedly about advancing specials.

I owe you an apology on that front, @KagekaAkumu.

EDIT:And thank you @Infilament, for keeping me honest.

Yeah a large part of KI’s neutral is based upon safe forward advancing specials in a lot of matchups. I’d also like to note Cinder’s mk trailblazer is also situationally safe if spaced correctly and that goes quite far. I think it’s 0 or -1 at the tip.

Ah right I forgot Cinder, he was in my mind but didn’t write him down for some reason.

But yeah it’s a staple of KI offense. As said, Jago’s is good because it crushes lows and if you guess wrong on the DP mixup after, Jago gets a lot of damage. But it’s not a unique to Jago thing.