Outside of things that were just “bugs”
I would recommend looking through the patch notes, most changes are accompanied by explanations.
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The real question to me is, why do you ask? Do you feel Gargos is a weak character now?
If the answer to that is yes, then did you watch the recent Combo Breaker Top 8?
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I don’t think there are weak characters in this game. If you don’t know how to play a character, it doesn’t mean the character is nerfed. The blame is on you. For example, Arbiter is my main and people usually look down on him. Nevertheless, I beat most killers online with him. So it’s really all up to you.
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He was never meant to be as strong as he was. Gargos is supposed to be a solid grappler, solid zoner, solid air fighter. Problem is he was master at all of these things. Even with his nerfs the character is still a pain in the ■■■.
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I definitely already did that but it just felt like patch roller coaster for gargos
I still think he’s good. It just seemed like he was just getting a nerf every patch. yeah he got some buffs but the majority of his patch inclusions seemed like nerfs.
I mained Gargos all throughout the nerfs and I still feel he’s pretty rewarding to play. My only wish was that I had known about his triple Ultra before it was taken out. It seemed like it would have been super fun to pull off (obviously not if you are on the receiving end), but I missed my window. 
You should have seen boss Gargos during the Shadow Lords beta before HE got nerfed… guy was an ■■■ hole that would wreck you so fast it’d make your head spin.
Eh, depends who you ask. Keits was pretty intentional about Gargos being a quite strong character when I spoke to him about it - his frustration was actually more about how he felt the community didn’t really try to lab out his weaknesses (he had them even then) and instead just cried “NERF”.
As to your question @spidey300, ultimately I think it comes down to Gargos being a pretty “bad” top tier. As in, he’s kinda not someone who you want in a game’s Top 5, because his playstyle is by its very nature overwhelming and annoying. Gargos’ varies tools (minion setplay, passable zoning, command grabs) allow him to essentially negate the opponent’s toolset, and he was able to go into that style of play very easily early on because he built so much meter and had such easy minion pressure setups. You couldn’t even just steel yourself and block it out, because Gargos has plenty of safe command grab setups once he has a minion or two on the field.
There are certain characters you don’t want to be too good, and while I think Gargos counterplay wasn’t explored enough, I do agree that he is a character you’d rather have as a mid-tier. He’s just annoying to deal with, and the things that made him annoying were very easy to go into. Mira’s massive damage is balanced pretty brilliantly by her life drain mechanic, and a lot of Aria’s nonsense is caveated by the fact that her bodies can straight up die and deprive her of tools. Gargos (another very unique archetype) initially didn’t really have any comparable limiting factor to him, so you felt the full strength of his kit pretty much 24/7.
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this is probably the best answer I could’ve gotten even though it feels like there’s just as much annoying ■■■■ because it’s KI or at least a post iron galaxy world KI but I see what you mean
Yeah, I remember for the longest time the community would immediately call you trash if you so much as even put a single minion in play, so I didn’t use them for the longest time. I can’t argue with the end result of learning how to play him with one hand tied behind my back though.
Lol. As I often am, I feel compelled to point out that absurd BS in KI was in no way limited to IG’s time with the game. KI S1 had:
- Jago shadow windkick clearing the entire screen in 8 frames, letting you whiff punish mediums from clear across the stage.
- Saberwulf functionally infinite frame traps of cr.LP (which was shadow counter safe and had almost no pushback), until he decided to mix it up and toss in his unreactable overhead.
- Saberwulf insane backdash that could literally outpace a meaty heavy demon blade.
- Glacius unblockable setups after any combo breaker (
) - Sadira instinct safe counter breakers, where even if you didn’t fall for the counter you would still eat 50-60% damage because of how damaging webs were.
- Sadira actually unbreakable instinct combos.
- Spinal unblockable setups (didn’t see them in tournament because we were bad, but they were found after game transitioned to S2).
- Fulgore hitting for 74% with single use of bar.
To say nothing of how HKD combo breakers set up for ridiculousness generally across the cast. Killer Instinct S1 was many things, but it manifestly did not have a dearth of annoying, stupid, or unfair ■■■■. :-p
I definitely remember all that from tournaments. I just barely missed season 1 of KI though. wish i would’ve got to use that shadow windkick more. even after double helix was no more it was just more and more characters got added and there was more and more bs. it kinda works for KI because everyone has some bs to combat the bs but it’s like man I’m gettin tired of bs and gimmicks. I haven’t played in like months maybe a year though and haven’t even been to these forums in years so yeah.
I honestly think the difference in how people feel is related simply to roster size. When the game launches with six characters it let the community develop a better understanding of their opponents. So they basically got used to the nonsense. With so much exposure to each character it was almost like spending real time in the lab. As the roster expanded people didn’t expand with it. It doesn’t help that even just combo breaking a character gets easier with experience.
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I actually did talk with keits a lot about Gargos since I felt he was fine after his 1st two patches. I was playing him a lot myself early on and felt he was a little too good since he didn’t really have to play like they had described him. They intended for him to be played in an arc with his various tools but he didn’t really have to do that.
I will agree after his 1st patch or so he was largely fine. A lot of people were just unaware of how to fight him much like they were and still are with eagle when everyone was claiming he’s the game’s best character.
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If anyone ever doubts how good Gargos is, just try to fight him as Sadira. 
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Well, that’s just a ■■■■■■ MU in general. Sadira’s got a few of those unfortunately.
Yeah, some of the “Eagle is Top 1 free!” stuff just kinda makes me shake my head. Amenty telling me bird bomb somehow negated Hisako’s pressure was really surprising, because it just really, really doesn’t, and I’m surprised he hasn’t explored the MU enough to know that. And if he hasn’t explored the fight, I’m curious how much any of these other guys have really delved into the character and his weaknesses.
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As someone who was on Eagle is a top tier character who can use tactics that might have been patched out if they were known about during the end of S3 development. I assume the idea is eagle having the bird dive that will beat almost anything outside of projectile invul moves and throws while having the ability to do jump or backdash(bird dive backdash is pretty hard however so its possibly a thing you will shave to worry about because you wont face some skd type execution beast KI eagle player) would throw a wrench in hisako general oki gameplan as it would a bunch of characters, The tin foil scenario is that he can get bird dive after almost every blocked normal and is actually strong on defense when he has the bird because he can guess when you will try to break his guard and send bird out to get out of mixups and having it be really hard to bait if they block something since the aggressor would have to come up with answer that beats one of eagles universal defense options and doesn’t get smoked by bird. It might be because some biases but I feel eagle could be on the lower end of top tier.
I think Eagle is certainly strong - he may not be Top 5 but I do not think he’s very far outside it. It’s more that there’s a difference between thinking “this character is really good” and “this character is easily the best character in the game” or “this character doesn’t have effective counterplay”. Eagle does have effective counterplay, and while he’s both strong and annoying, it feels like people are reading that to mean unstoppable. I don’t disagree that Eagle would likely be touched up if there were more balance patches forthcoming, but even with that there are still some pretty obvious and exploitable gaps in his kit.
It doesn’t though, and it isn’t hard to test this out in real matches. Unless every other Hisako is monumentally botching their oki, then this shouldn’t be much of a take at all.
This is where Amenty was coming down, and I was just kinda like “eh?” You can mash bird all you want, Hisako’s rekka first strike is safe to bird bomb, and if you ever spend it that way then you’re now looking at birdless defense/neutral for like 7 seconds. If you aren’t calling the bird, then you’re now de facto holding the mixup just like every other character in the game. He was saying “bird bomb” like some kind of mantra for why he beats her, but again, (extremely simple) counterplay exists, and it’s super weird to me that even really good players are acting like it doesn’t. If Eagle does indeed win the MU (I don’t think he does, but a reasonable case could be made otherwise), it sure as heck isn’t off the strength of bird dive.
Thing is it doesn’t. I played a set with amenty and you can clearly see it doesnt during the set. Unless your meaty is off or you’re not doing a true string the bird isn’t coming out. And if eagle is trying to mash bird after everything just throw him. He’ll lose the bird for a good amount of time And is pretty free after.
Eagle is definitely A very good character. He however has very clear weaknesses and losing mus. And while his vortex is strong he has to open you up a lot to kill you.