True, but Jago has a means of recovering life where Wulf doesn’t.
Yeah Jumping slash is not a good feral cancel-able move. It’s best used on his other grounded moves as you can keep your pressure going or just keep your moves relatively safe.
This kind of feral cancel use won’t be affected much with the season 3 change except for a slightly longer (1/2 second) cool down period.
They could have just left the season 1 instinct alone. 20% damage boost
, chip damage and no feral cancels.
In my opinion IG HATES Wulf and everything the character stands for. Look at 90% of the characters they’ve released and you’ll see that their characters tend to be zoning heavy and/or low damage characters. Wulf pretty much craps on that so they’ve been steadily bringing him in line with their fighting game philosophy.
I actually would’ve been good with this. I always thought Wulf’s instinct was “boring” in S1 only because players were making it boring. MyGod was the only pro player who used it properly IMO - when he popped instinct he took a lifebar, guaranteed.
Basically Sabrewulf got faster and did less damage?
Infil, I totally agree with what you say. But I feel like theres another factor to consider which is IGs vision of an accessible and fun game outside the FGC. These changes are great in terms of tier but don’t you think it leaves his instinct only good for those who know some higher level stuff?
Nah, not really. Lots of characters have “complicated” instincts (Aria, Shadow Jago, Kan-Ra, etc). With Wulf, all it really means is sometimes you press HP+HK if you want to stop doing what you’re doing, and do something else. You don’t really need to know complicated setups and advanced mixups to get some benefit from it.
Good stuff man I never get tired of watching your videos. ![]()
Also I agree 100% about IG’s take on Wulf. Low damage, more “tools”, it just doesn’t make sense he’s a Werewolf a rushdown, in your face, straight forward character. He’s only an “issue” when he gets close. I’ve watched the entire cast season 3 re-balances (I don’t know how many times) thinking maybe I jumped to conclusions about him being severely nerfed. I say he still got the shaft. I really don’t get IG’s take on that he gets low damage because he can juggle. For those like myself that can’t juggle or use feral cancels correctly we really got screwed. Plus not every character should be a juggler, people think Wulf is “boring” to watch that might be for some but I never get bored with watching others play him personally. There are plenty of other characters to choose from with “style” and “flare.” Wulf has style in his own way or at least he used to.
Loose speculation, but I have higher hopes for Jago-Wulf post-rebalance than currently.
Jago could never zone out Wulf previously, and that’s probably not going to change here. Instead of sweating the mixup now, whenever Jago finds himself on the back foot he might be able to just sit there, hold downback and wait for Wulf’s…what, three frame traps maybe?, to subside, meanwhile just looking for mixups, and only really worrying about throws and throw baits. And whilst much of this could be said for the other way around, Jago can frame trap for longer, can shadow-cancel his throws, gets his overheads “for free” because he can cancel into a safe or even plus move, and has a little more ability to root out shadow counters thanks to a now pressure-relevant fireball.
I’m not sure Jago will outright win this matchup. Wulf probably wins the footsie game. But I’ve never liked the Wulf matchup as Jago, and the above speculation (which I’m happy to be shown reason on) makes it seem much more manageable to me. (Though this might also speak to my lack of a great game plan for Jago vs Wulf right now.)
Again, something rubs me the wrong away about an unsafe, reactable overhead. If Jago can situationally find goddamned plus-frames off of his overhead, I’m perplexed as to why Wulf has to eat a punish off of his. I might be missing something, but the risk-reward seems out of wack, even in context of the rebalance.
I also just don’t think Wulf is really Wulf anymore without an unreactable mixup to speak of. Not that I want to go on a deep dive into the Killer Instinct lore, but Wulf is a big ■■■■ dog, his shtick is meant to be that of the all-in, impatient champing-at-the-bit canine. Not to mention that with Wulf out of the contention for “hard mixup character”, oddly enough I’m having a hard time thinking of other characters who fill the void: there’s TJ, maybe Orchid, and…? Not that I want to get into the habit of remarking on what IG “likes” in their combat designs, but it almost seems like someone has it in for unreactable high-lows that lead into the combo system.
It’s because Wulf has better tools at that range than Jago, including hamstring, overpower (which is faster than Jago double roundhouse and can’t be shadow countered), running uppercut, a forward dash that goes through people, and a cr.LK that is +4 on block and can trap people forever until they reversal. If Wulf also got a safe on block overhead mixup after that I think it’d be way too much. He already controls that space so incredibly well that I think he should have to take the risk.
It’s not just the frames that matter. Riptor has a slow 28 frame (or whatever) tail flip that is minus a billion on block, but a) it hits people anyway and b) it needs to be unsafe, even though it’s slow.
This is a great discussion. It’s good to see people having a civil exchange that’s actually about the substance of the game. But maybe we ought to actually wait and play Sabrewulf to see how the changes affect him in the wild before we go too crazy worrying about them…
The people asking for a damage buff ON TOP of Feral Cancel are being a bit greedy. Just because you don’t personally use FC doesn’t change the fact that other people are breaking the game with it lol.
Riptors overhead hits because it can crossup, you rarely see it hit in front to start a set.
I just sincerely feel like Wulf got screwed big time in the rebalance changes for S3. So he learned how to play Basketball, and has a divepunch. Big woop. He lost sooo much more, and those two changes don’t make up for it.
If jumping slash is going to be reactable, it needs to be safe. It’s his only real means of opening someone up.
These changes were definitely done to appease all the crybabies complaining about how op sabrewulf is. you can see this in the fact that some of these changes are just plain unfair. -35% damage on shadow eclipse? “Oh wait, you can juggle because this is marvel vs cap on 3” ALL ender damage reduced, unlike most of the cast which just had a few moves nerfed. And worst of all they made his instinct useless. Every character gets something unique and awesome with their instinct. Glaciers gets his armor and jags gets to freaking heal. But poor old Wulf gets feral cancel, which they nerfed as well. And to make things worse they throw in a painfully half-assed looking new move, probably thrown in to make the changes seem fair,which doesn’t look like it will be of much use at all.
Wulf was the perfect Rushdown, but now it looks like he’s going to be sidelined for riptor or jago
So Jagos wind kick that travels the entire screen isn’t broken, but for is op and needs nerf?
Yeah, he’s a werewolf. Hes supposed to fight wildly and unpredictably like a rabid dog, but now it’s like they want you to hit and retreat. I don’t get it. They say “85% of what you will be doing is the same” yet they are practically changing the entire game mechanics and, changing the way entire characters play.
Yeah I’ve noticed that too. They’re changing all the season 1 characters to be more in line with Iron Galaxy made characters, and it’s ruining the game.
“But I’m not an expert on balance” neither is Iron Galaxy apparently. They think “rebalancing” means changing the very mechanics of how a character plays
Jago has not had a full screen wind kick for a long time…