THEY CHANGED ARIA’S ANNOUNCER VOICE. It echo’s a lot more when to do an ultra or combo breaker. Slightly better, but still could use work.
ARIA’s post-ultra visual glitch has been taken out today and I can’t see it in the patch notes.
What I’m referring to is on the 7th hit of her ultra ARIA fuses all her forms but if you end the ultra a few frames before this her body will disappear but the 3 assist will still be intact which is a fun and harmless glitch that resets before the next round.
You see few ARIA’s online and even fewer know about it, IG should fix other issues like ARIA’s grab after a wall splat doing barely any damage at all, or her heavy autos pushing the opponent out of reach for a light manual.
Isn’t Glacius’ CB still getting beaten by Kan ra’s scarab cloud 7 feet in the air while he travels in the ground?
Does anyone else feel like the game speed increased a bit? Or maybe I was playing people with outstanding connections…
Now that you mention it, it does feel a little faster. But this is my first time coming back in about a week so I can’t say for sure. Doesn’t help that one of the first things I did was train my Cinder shadow.
I think it makes sense to have this setup breakable, but I have a few big problems with it.
a) I’m fine with Kan-Ra’s recapture being unbreakable and Cinder’s recapture being breakable, because Cinder can recapture at almost any point during an 8 hit juggle combo, and it’s counter-breakable. Meanwhile, Kan-Ra’s recapture comes with very obvious timing. However, now Aganos’ Ruin also comes with very obvious timing AND it’s not counter-breakable. A full-screen Ruin is a now a 100% break, mid-screen is 50%, and up-close is 33%. Also, I could be wrong here, but I find the startup on the various strengths of Ruin to be fairly easy to figure out even without spacing, especially if it’s slowed down by having chunks.
Shadow Ruin is an option, but then I have to use all of my meter for a guaranteed wall crash (the final move being heavily scaled), followed by being reset to neutral. That is a huge defensive sacrifice, as Aganos needs that meter for any type of wakeup.
b) This has always been there, but I disagree even more with Aganos’ walls taking damage after Combo Breakers now. People hate Combo Breaker > Instinct cancel > juggle/recapture because it’s not “back to neutral”, but a Combo Breaker is almost never neutral for Aganos, particularly if he has walls up, and now it feels even worse.
To give an extreme example, if I did the Shadow Payload Assault setup on Kan-Ra and he broke it - I lose my meter, the potential damage that came along with it, a hit point on all of my walls, the chunk I probably used to open him up in the first place, AND I have to wake up directly into scarab block stun. The opponent can now get all of that on a break where I can’t counter-break?
c) Why would I use Shadow Payload Assault now? It was good before because I was pretty much guaranteed 2-3 out of 4 choices based off of my chunk speed - including grabbing a chunk, setting up a wall, doing a Heavy Payload Assault, and getting a wall crash. This made it a hybrid ender of sorts. I could get 1.) a wall crash ender when I didn’t have a wall up, 2.) a chunk grab + wall crash ender, or 3.) a more damaging wall crash ender. Now it’s almost a “make your wall crash breakable” ender.
For most matchups, I could normally set up a wall after a normal chunk ender. I think I’m much better off doing that and holding onto my meter. If I have a wall up, I’m much better off just doing a manual into Ruin ender, since it would be much harder to break and I can hold onto my meter. Shadow Payload Assault already can only be comboed into using select autodoubles, linkers, and manuals.
If they made it counter-breakable it would be better, but it would still be a huge risk for something that’s more guaranteed without using meter. I have to look at the tradeoffs between damage, meter, chunks, etc. but it seems like a huge nerf.
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Keep in mind that Ruin is not an ender. Shadow Ruin is a Shadow Ender in juggles. Ender Ruin is an ender in golden-path combos. Regular Ruin is a manual special move in combos, just like juggling into a Jago DP (not an ender). It will follow all of the breakability rules based on what it is.
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I agree with that, and that’s why I think it makes sense to implement this fix given the rules of the game. However, within the context of Shadow Payload Assault, it seems that there is always a more useful (and/or less risky) way to use his meter now.
Why is ruin considered a manual special move? It STOPS the combo! And as such, you can’t even do anything after it! Please change regular ruin to an ender and all that that implies (or at least explain to me why you won’t do it so I can understand your reasoning).
You can’t do anything after a manual ruin… except slam them through walls for around 20-80%.
Standard enders are cancels rather than links (known as manuals in KI) in that you activate an ender by cancelling a manual/AD/linker into the ender special move. If you manual the special move, the move itself plays and not the ender animation.
S2 introduced an exception to the rule that enders had to be cancels by modifying shadow enders so that they could cash out a juggle. Juggle combos would be very laborious and annoying (and maybe even impossible for some characters) if the enders had to be cancelled into from a manual, and a shadow ender is essentially the same as a normal shadow move, so they allowed shadow enders to cash out regardless.
A manual ruin is neither cancelled into nor a shadow move, which is why it isn’t a proper ender, but it still cashes out which is pretty huge as no other character can cash out a juggle without the use of meter.
There are no “regular enders”. That isn’t a thing. Moves cannot be enders (that cash out damage) unless they are Combo Enders (Motion + Heavy during grounded doubles/linkers/manuals) or Shadow Enders (Must spend meter, these can cash out juggles).
Tons of special moves can be used as manuals in a combo or juggle that end the combo, but that doesn’t make them Enders. An Ender is a very specific thing. It cashes out potential damage. Being an Ender doesn’t mean ‘the combo is over’. Many actual Enders can be comboed after, as well.
Aganos getting to cash out with Wall Crash is a pretty huge advantage. One well worth going through the risk of someone breaking the breakable thing you just did.
I’m not sure if the devs realise how much of a problem this poses (having the HUD be silent by default). I’ll now have to go in and find where the KV meter/whatever it’s called option is and turn it up. Surely it’s better to leave it on by default and allow people to turn it down so as not to discourage newcomers or other VI players as well as those who may benefit from it?
Other than that, I don’t even know why Shadow replays are any different to other fights? Any clarification would be much appreciated.
As if Aganos doesn’t have enough problems with matchups as it is? That setup was about the most damaging piece of tech you’ve taught me and now I have to change that up and figure out the spacing? I have no idea… Maybe a new second might be in order for the moment maybe?
Will Riptors headbutt armor glitch ever be taken out? The world may never know!
Sabre’s stage still looks very washed out to me.
Yeah, but look on the bright side; you can counter break that for even bigger damage! 
The problem is that there is 0 risk to breaking the ruin. Aganos can’t counter break it, and the strength is always telegraphed (it MUST be heavy from all the important ranges, and as Leo said even not counting those ranges you can typically react to the Ruin strength if you’re in the corner or something).
I imagine the game freaks out when you counter break because there’s probably some safe counter breaker setups around here, since the guy flies through the wall almost immediately and making contact with the Ruin probably sends his velocity flying backwards into the wall. It just kinda sucks for Aganos because he can literally never do this setup against an opponent who knows about this. It’s a free break and he’s wasted a ton of chunks, meter, and potential damage to try it.
It would probably be easier to handle if medium Ruin went farther and the counter breaker glitch was removed? Then there’s a semblance of a mixup and the opponent has to take a risk to break, as is the case with other breakable stuff.
Bug thread the not-being-able-to-counter-break stuff, that isn’t intended.
But yeah, LOADS of character have to do telegraphed things to get into another thing they want. I also think Aganos’ performances recently speak volumes about how good the character actually is.
My killer coins (7500) has been deleted after the patch…am I the only one?
There is supposed to be a replay button in shadow activity now right? I cant seem to find it.
Its only available to watch on your newest Bounties. Highlight the Bounty and you will see that if you push Menu or Select button you can watch the replay.