I think the hard knockdown would probably need to remain tied to the Heavy version of Skyfall, which I would like to see kept the same as it currently is. I think the new Skyfall should be as follows:
Light - quick but short forward air dash, with a burst of crows propelling Thunder forward. This is purely movement/mobility related, and does not result in an attack. Maybe projectile invulnerable, but probably a chunky recovery time. If it doesn’t have the invulnerability, I don’t think a long recovery is needed.
Medium - a down-forward diagonal attack, allowing Thunder to come at the opponent from a potentially unexpected direction. An overhead/high attack which opens a combo if the opponent is standing/crouching, but otherwise causes a soft knockdown.
Heavy - As it currently is; an overhead attack, as Thunder slams straight down to the ground from the air, knocking the opponent down.
It probably isn’t supposed to or it doesn’t have a hit box? There are a lot of things at play. Who knows. I have the strategy guide as well but I don’t think it mentions any of that either.
It was BS because:
-It tracked
-It could be easily spammed from far away.
-Forced opponents to get in by sheer annoyance.
-Unless you had a character who can teleport it was a real pain for those who couldn’t teleport.
The move just wasn’t great for anything. I think what Thunder has now will work out well for him.
And what would you call Kan-Ra’s sand spike? Besides, the original CotS was so slow on startup, it was easy to see coming, easy to avoid (all you had to do was dash), and easily punishable. The ONLY time it was good was from far away and usually only if your opponent was jumping. Then again, that’s where Thunder needed help the most. With the new version, many opponents can just stay back and toy with him all day long - case in point, Kan Ra’s sand-spike.
Zoning is tough to deal with at times, and I have no Idea how they justify having characters with strong zoning properties in this game. I will say this, Thunder can deal with it and, can get in but the problem isn’t so much getting in, its staying in. A combo break is a innate Nerf to a character like Thunder because of the distance it gives. One combo break and most of the time Thunder is forced to play the Zoner’s game again which is alot harder to deal with IMO as Thunder when compared with dealing with Thunder’s Rushdown. I like Call of Sky the way it is because of the mix Potential. Still something needs to be done with how easy it is to zone Thunder out for people that can’t time Sammaish
There was nothing bs about that attack. It had super long startup. If Thunder did call of sky, I could shoot a projectile, and still have time to block his and mine would do more chip damage. Kan-Ra can toss out a tracking sand spike that is faster than Call of Sky that will counter you outright if you even try it. It would be a dead move in that matchup. It hat it’s uses sure, but as a Fulgore player, if I timed my teleport just right, I would not get hit by it and get a full combo punish from full screen. It was a bad move and there are better moves.
You make agood point there. Though unlike Kan-Ra who zones, Thunder is best at Close range. So you had a choice between getting scuba-stevaa’d to death or fight in a range where he has the full on advantage. For Thunder I think they should of just been a bit more lenient on his mobility and let him get a little faster. Instead of giving a move that upon activation comes down in a blink of an eye. The move could also be an issue for characters that can attack from the air. If you had no way of getting in fast this became a problem. Similar to Fulgore’s Full screen eye-beam but with much more start up. For someone who’s supose to fiht at close rane it seemed a bit much to give Thunder a Zoning tool.
There was nothing bs about that attack. It had super long startup. If Thunder did call of sky, I could shoot a projectile, and still have time to block his and mine would do more chip damage. Kan-Ra can toss out a tracking sand spike that is faster than Call of Sky that will counter you outright if you even try it. It would be a dead move in that matchup. It hat it’s uses sure, but as a Fulgore player, if I timed my teleport just right, I would not get hit by it and get a full combo punish from full screen. It was a bad move and there are better moves.
But what if you had a character who couldn’t do this? who couldn’t teleport? or didn’t have a projectile to counter? Thunder could just zone.
While you guys did make a good point from your own experiences, personally I’m glad they got rid of it. I still think that since he no longer does a move like that and only gets a buff. They should decrease the amount of time it takes for the lihting to strike him which I think can help him just a bit more.
You do know you could dash the lightning bolt right? Anyone could do that and Glacius would love a Thunder to stand there and cast lightning bolts. Trust me, there was not a character in the game who couldn’t deal with the lightning bolt easily. You just hadn’t seen nor figured out the ways to do it. It gave Spinal free skulls, and everyone else free meter. You’d block it until you were ready to go in with 2 full stocks of shadow and just open him up. Riptor was fast enough to just outrun it too. A lot of characters with a slide could out run the bolt. Let’s say worst case scenario, you’re well… I can’t even think of a character who would struggle with this ability. It’s only a person who would struggle with it. Hisako would be the only one to come to mind but, just save up the meter and go into shadow. Anyone had that ability. Just don’t jump. Block, get your free meter, and go in. Simple.
Every character except maybe a chunked-up Aganos was very easily able to deal with the lighting, and Thunder didn’t exactly have the ability to zone with it considering the long startup. The lightning strike was blockable, and walking or dashing afterwards would allow you to move forwards or backwards a fair bit before the next lightning strike, if Thunder was spamming it. Teleports and quick dashes could leave the area of effect as it was coming down, too.
This move at least allowed Thunder to do SOMETHING to harass zoners/constant jumpers as he tried to move in, as landing a hit with the lightning would cause a hard KD. Even if the opponent blocked, it gave Thunder time for movement or a dash forward.
The current COS doesn’t really help against zoners and runaways in my opinion, so I’m hoping he gets something that can actually do so. The Skyfall adjustments we’ve been discussing would be pretty decent in that regard, I think.
I think the new COS is a step in the right direction for Thunder, but I believe it could still tweak the start up so it doesn’t take him so long to get that buff seeing as the move can’t be used to harass and annoy like the older version did.
If they could do that and maybe just increase the distance he travels while buffed I think it could be pretty helpful for Thunder in the long run, all the while not compromising anything for everyone else.
Says everyone who doesn’t play Sadira. CoS was annoying as balls in that MU, and basically only that MU. Which isn’t a good design philosophy really, which is why it needed to be changed. CoS was a complete non-issue for a character who was on the ground, as the start-up time was horrendous and after the first patch it became avoidable. Against Sadira it basically locked down her ability to take to the air though, and let him just walk her into the corner. It was super annoying, and forced her to fight at sub-optimal ranges where he just had more options.
The new CoS isn’t fantastic, but at least it has (some) use in all MU’s, and isn’t strangely burdensome on random characters. I’ve seen it used to moderate effect; the issue is more just that it isn’t really all that great on getting in on someone who is truly dedicated to running away. Sammamish canceled into Sammamish is far more effective at that.
Sadira players didn’t like it because they couldn’t jump… Sadira could do more than jump… I would also argue that exclusively Sadira players over excessive needyness to jump nerfed 2 moves in this game to either being removed or may as well be removed because they have no uses. It’s a joke really… Jumping isn’t supposed to be safe. But all Sadira players ever do is jump kick, or jump web kick and nothing else and expect that they shouldn’t have any counters to that playstyle. Her ground game isn’t even that bad but no Sadira would ever know that since 80% of the time hold up is the mentality.
-shrug- Sadira can do more than jump and does have decent footsies actually, but she’s not generally going to win a grounded spacing battle with a character like Thunder or Jago. Or Wulf or Orchid. Or Hisako. Or Aganos. Etc. She loses to their pressure fairly hard the moment it becomes a knock-down drag out on the ground.
I presume you’re referring to CoS and Fulgore’s up-laser? The former was, as has been attested several times in this thread, utterly useless in all MU’s except for the Sadira fight, which is not good for any move’s balance, and in any case Thunder already had a great way to deal with her jumping shenanigans. Fulgore’s up-laser, if that’s what you were referring to, was primarily nerfed for how it affected the Glacius and Thunder and Aganos MU’s. Sadira was never hugely encumbered by it, as the shallow angle tended to put it below her jumps at anything but extreme full screen spacing. I was actually one of the ones who recommended they give him the full range steeper angle version of the laser, as it would have been better against Sadira.
But whatever, I get that many, many people don’t like Sadira. I even understand it a bit, as I picked up my pocket Hisako originally because I disliked the mirror. But I would point out that Sadira’s jumps aren’t safe either, and that there are in fact many counters to it. Heavy web is punishable by basically the entire cast, medium web has little block stun and is susceptible to DP’s and down+HP’s, many characters’ air to air buttons will hit a Sadira trying to jump->web you, web pressure approaches are trip-guardable, etc. And then once you knock her down she’s free to strong oki. If you can’t keep her out of the air that’s on you.
It’s not that I don’t like Sadira, she could easily deal with Thunder’s old CoS the same way anyone else would. Just let him give you free meter or force him to come into a range where CoS is unsafe to begin with. Thunder cannot and could not zone with that move. You got hit for being impatient. You could easily dash CoS with Sadira since her dashes were relatively good. That’s how I used to deal with it.
