Sabrewulf Season 3 Rebalance Thread

Characters Sabrewulf
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Just as a note, it isn’t necessary to respond in individual posts to each person’s comments. You can just tag them all in a single post, or quote them individually and they’ll get the notice as well.

Many enders across the entire cast got nerfed, including a lot of characters’ damage enders. Wulf is not unique in this, and in general the character dealt quite a bit of damage to begin with.

Characters get things that are useful to them - not everyone has a flashy or spectacular instinct. Riptor just gets insane range on her tail and bigger/more damaging flames. Aganos gets a peacemaker that does almost nothing to help him on his weak defense. S2 Glacius got a hit of armor that half the cast could blow through in a single move. Thunder just gets an invincible dash that is only moderately better than the dash Saberwulf has at all times.

Yes, some characters do have better instincts than others, and S2 Wulf’s was the best of the bunch. But it wasn’t the best because of the damage buff (though that certainly helped), it was the best because of the absolute shenanigans that feral cancel let you pull off. The damage was the icing, but feral cancel is the core of what made Wulf so overwhelmingly powerful in instinct. Even with the refresh nerf, feral cancels are still very, very, good. Just because something isn’t immediately overwhelming or spectacular doesn’t mean it isn’t quite good. Hisako’s instinct isn’t particularly scary at low to mid level - it’s only once someone starts chaining counter-hit naginata normals and command grab resets that it actually begins to shine.

Really? An unreactable dash through, the best command normal in the game (overpower), one of the best frame trap buttons in the game (cr+LK), fantastic throw range and fast, long range normals isn’t good enough? There’s more to opening people up than just hitting them with ■■■■ that can’t be seen - in fact a goodly chunk of the cast relies on tools other than unreactable high/low/left/right mixups to get their damage. They manage just fine, and I think you’ll find Wulf will as well. Being reactable isn’t the end of the world, and doesn’t mean that it will now never hit anyone ever again. People get hit by Jago’s overhead all the time. Heck, people get hit by Hisako’s rekka overhead all the time.

3 Likes
82

And both of those are safe situationally. What does Wulf have outside of run?
A standing overhead normal? Nope
A safe mixup? Nope
He lost two frames on his dash, which will make a big difference on his dash through left/right mixups, and eclipse and shadow eclipse don’t auto-correct on dash through anymore.
I still don’t understand why people ever press buttons after a cr.LK, either. If you don’t press buttons after orchids lvl2 mid rekka, or lvl2 overpower, why would you press buttons after a CHIPLESS normal?

Crouch block him and you’re good.

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Made moderately harder by the fact that he can dash through you on your wakeup, and always has the option of dash->meaty throw. And cr+LK frame traps are great for counter hitting attempted throw techs. No one’s trying to “push buttons” against a cr+LK string - they’re trying to tech the throw they suspect is coming.

And being “situationally” safe is not super impressive. That overhead that Hisako can wrath-cancel? Loses to mash throw every time, and there’s nothing she can do about it if she wants the mixup. Not everything you do on offense should be safe, even if it is reactable.

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Added the entire change list for Wulf to the OP and changed the title

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The frame data provided in practice mode for overpower has to be wrong, doesn’t it? I can’t manual it after a medium linker (nor should I be able to, since it’s a heavy – they even got rid of Jago’s double roundhouse auto double), so it’s got at least 7 frames of startup even uncharged. I take your point, though: overpower is a scary move. Also, “trap people forever with one button” brings to mind Riptor’s clMK. You get in Wulf’s crLK 2 or 3 times before the pushback puts it out of range. There’s a lot of pushback on Wulf’s normals in general, especially his crouching punches which seem to be where his reach is, but I guess overpower brings him in, and like you said, Wulf has a lot of strong options in the range that pushback puts him in.

But I guess I don’t really know what high-level Wulf pressure is, or what it’s gonna turn into with the rebalance. Do you think he’ll be frame trapping for days like Jago or Riptor in season 3? I always thought of him as a character who maybe does a few frame traps and then makes a rash decision that forces you to guess. Do you think my thoughts on the Jago-Wulf matchup in my previous post are just wrong?

Actually, if his frame traps are so good, I’m tempted to suggest that that’s where the nerfs should’ve been. Add a few frames of recovery here, some pushback there; let him keep the unreactable mixup options. But I guess that might make him too lopsided: insane at just within midscreen, unstable up close. I don’t know, my hangup is not so much with balance (which, admittedly, I’m not going to be able to comment authoritatively on) so much as philosophy: I’m pretty attached to the unreactable half-screen mixup being the centrepiece of Wulf’s gameplan.

One of the main complaints of the Riptor players seems to’ve been that they’re overly reliant on tail flip to find damage, so whilst they may take a lot of games with it, when they face an opponent whose blocking is on-point they just can’t win. It sounds like Riptor players are happy that tail flip is being de-emphasised in favour of other stuff. Also, tail flip is an ambiguous crossup, so seeing the startup isn’t really sufficient to block the move.

Most of the cast did get damage nerfs, especially to their enders. Go read the rebalance notes, the first few minuses on each character are usually ender damage nerfs.

What does this have to do with Wulf’s instinct or damage?

Also, only Jago’s heavy wind kick travels full screen. It’s an unsafe move, and at full screen it’s basically reactable. I’d say it’s a worse move than medium wind kick, which only reaches midscreen. fwiw, I’d say Wulf’s new fast run is better for crossing the screen than heavy wind kick.

I got the impression watching the demonstration that dash through was going to be reactable post-rebalance.

I’ve already commented on this earlier in this post, but whilst other characters obviously manage just fine without unreactable mixups, I don’t think that Wulf should manage just fine without unreactable mixups. To say nothing of whether I think he can manage – which I’m not sure of, but I’m coming around to the idea that he’ll be fine – it’s a hangup about what Wulf’s gameplan ought to be, and the surface level impression is that when they gave him these new mobility tools to deal with certain bad matchups, they then took away some things which, in doing so, I feel push him in a direction that is no longer Wulf.

To be fair, the dash through is basically a safe left-right mixup. Plus, even.

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When a character is OP there is no need for compensation.

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How was he op? Cause he sure as hell won’t be op in S3.

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88

Because feral cancels were really, really, good?

I don’t think he was broken or anything, but watch the KI World Cup and just count how many times a Saberwulf popping instinct takes the lifebar, often with a single combo. This is at the very highest levels of play, mind you - notice that regardless of who is playing, there is almost NEVER a successful defense against or break on a Wulf in instinct. He pops instinct and you pretty much just sacrifice a bar. Instinct SHOULD be powerful, and should be able to turn the tide of a match, but Wulf’s S2 instinct is over the line. Sadira’s is too, which is why it was also nerfed (heavily) in damage.

As to how good Wulf will be in S3, I highly recommend watching Cupcake play in the Saucy Suite later that night (may need to mute it, as commentary is NSFW and not game related at all). Cupcake utterly mauls with S3 Wulf, showing the utility of his diving slash (I knew it would be good based on its speed and frame data, but wow), flip out, and even the nerfed overhead. He hits people with that overhead A LOT. Again - being reactable doesn’t mean something will never hit. We’re talking a difference of a few milliseconds here, and KI (and Wulf in particular) give you a lot else to keep your mind and reactions occupied.

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So is it crazy to give him a feral cancel “stock” like Aganos chunks? He can only do it a certain amount of times to open someone up. Seems like all I see is “feral cancels are so good.” So was the damage really the problem? Lessen the damage (vs. eliminate), make cancels worse. Just talking instinct here, not normal/specials.

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I saw the Saucy suit footage too, and I think the reason some will think Wulf is too lacking now is because they are thinking of his changes in the context of Season 2, not Season 3.

That’s right. Think of Wulfs overhead or Riptors tail flip like old tragedy assault Nash had in the earlier SFV beta. it was an extremely slow overhead, but people could still get it to work if it was used sparingly enough.

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Riptors tailflip hitting is not a good example of a reactable overhead landing. It lands because of the unreactable crossup potential it has

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So I got to watch some of the KI World Cup, watching the Wulf players they didn’t “take a lifebar” even in instinct. Now Aganos on the other hand, never seen a matches end so quick. Talk about OP. Feral cancels are good for pro players but I agree with the others that for average players it does nothing. Personally I would have been fine without FC and content with the backdash.

I watched some of the footage of S3 play with Wulf ( I had to mute it the volume though)Wulf looked so choppy and slow. The the new “non auto adjusting” eclipse looks so weird and doesn’t make sense. Wulf makes and arc around himself, so shouldn’t it hit around around him? Kan-ra gets an auto sand scorpion that attacks players if they get too close but Wulf can’t keep the arc he makes. Riptor can now shoot 3 overhead fireballs on top of keeping the raw damage she does. Glacius can summon up to 3 hail,has new armor, and now has an auto track puddle punch. Aganos loads chunks faster, creates walls, and send you through those walls pretty much only giving you one lifebar to play. I’m not going to go through the hole cast, but I hope some can see why Wulf players maybe salty lol. Wulf now has to rely on juggles, moves slower, and his damage is decreased. Wulf reminds me of Shadow Jago ( uses juggles to get damage) and Omen ( who has to hit multiple times to get damage) I don’t agree he should have Aganos damage however I think he needs to be re-adjusted to what he once was. Seeing S3 Wulf no longer seems like Wulf imo anyway.

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I get why these changes were made but I still think that the removal of damage buff in instinct along with all of the other damage nerfs and linker nerfs is a bit much. This is especially going to affect the non tournament level players, which is contradictory to recent efforts to make the game friendly to new players with things like combo assist. If we can’t get back the damage buff, can we meet somewhere in the middle? I feel something like increased chip damage or slightly increased damage on enders only during instinct would be fair. This would give casual players something more out of instinct and I don’t think it would make a huge difference at high level with all of the other nerfs. I guess we’ll have to wait until season 3 comes to see how it all plays out.

3 Likes
94

Yeah I agree, Riptor’s tail flip mixups are UNREACTABLE. Period. Until someone can post a replay of himself blocking left and right 100% of the time in 2 or 3 matches I won’t believe otherwise. Online or offline, you can’t tell which way she’s landing until it’s too late.

And in regards to the feral cancels being enough for Wulf’s instinct. FERAL CANCELS GOT NERFED TOO! Big time. Not only did the cool down period take a hit, but the combos being so hard to break was also changed.

“[-] Fixed a bug preventing Feral Cancel from carrying over breaker windows for a few frames from the previous move correctly.”

This nerf can be seen in the Saucey Suite videos too. Flash and Cupcake were having their instinct combos broken constantly. Of course above, they refer to it as a “Bug” even though it’s been that way through countless bug fixing updates. LOL, Whatever.

So basically the one character that was, from the beginning of KI’s development, designed to be a beginner friendly character, now has an instinct that has absolutely ZERO benefit for beginners. And for everyone else, the benefit is significantly less than it was.

Oh yeah, the chip damage buff has never been a factor in any match. Ever.

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It hitting overhead is unrelated. What I’m trying to say is that if something react able is used less often, than it can still be deadly because people won’t be expecting it.

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I think they wanted Wulf to be a close range pressure monster with slightly better ways to get in, rather than a risky close-range character with fewer ways to get in.

I think you could argue the unreactable mixups aren’t that much fun for the offense or the defense. Clearly the defense is often mega frustrated by them, because they just have to routinely guess every time Wulf is in that range, which might be fairly often depending on the matchup. And the offense is probably frustrated by them too, knowing that they have to take a risk to open people up because their main offensive tool is unsafe. It’s probably better to make that slightly less of a focus for Wulf’s gameplan, but this is obviously subjective.

Anyway, Cupcake posted in the FB group that he thinks Wulf is a top 5 threat in S3. Dive kick is absolutely amazing for lots of (what I thought were) fairly obvious reasons. Not just for positioning against zoners, but also for real mixups, like… you do sweep ender and your neutral jump safe jump setup, and now you can choose to land behind them with dive kick for a really brutal mixup. Wulf can get into his effective position so much more easily from forward jump at half screen, because dive kick is safe on block. But more importantly, the increased run speed + hamstring distance is massive. Cupcake was saying you can whiff punish from well over half screen (projectiles, etc) on reaction easily. Every time Running Uppercut hits (which is more now, thanks to run speed), you get a sweep and your safe jump dive kick mixup. If they break the sweep, you start to mix in flip out and it’s overwhelming.

For people who are thinking Wulf is bad, I just don’t think you’re looking at it correctly. Those at the Cup were saying all Wulf players thought he was amazing.

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I’d argue that making Wulf’s linkers actually follow the same ■■■■ rules everyone else’s do is probably more beginner-friendly, but whatever.

I think many people have simply made up their mind that Wulf is now this terrible character, the same way they made up their minds that he was a terrible character when S2 nerfed his backdash. Yes, he has to open up his opponents more - so does the rest of the cast, and he got some new tools that make that more likely. Yes, his overhead is now reactable - it will still open people up if used judiciously. The defender just has more than a prayer’s chance of actually blocking it now. Yes, his FC refresh rate got toned down - he still gets a safe left/right high low mixup every few seconds.

S3 will happen and we’ll see which side is more correct. I think Wulf will remain a very strong character. If I’m wrong in that assertion, I will gladly return to this thread and eat my words.

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I’m pretty OK with the Nerfs. Would much rather keep frame traps than mixups. Don’t touch my +4 CR.LK and leave Overpower alone. Any frame trap that leads to tick throws is a 50/50 via ambiguous dash setup. So he still has mixups, just need to work for them via pressure first.

Feral Cancel nerf takes away from manual utility but still extremely effective at keeping Wulf at +lol on block.

But dam, 20 frame Leaping Slash. I hope in the release it is no longer unsafe. At least make it -4. Yeah, 20 frames is still fast enough to tag someone at least as often as Jago’s OH does, but being unsafe for those chances? Yikes. No.

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This happens usually though. A favorite character gets nerfed.

Said character turns out to be even more deadly than before.

People play said character and say Character is broken.

Cycle continues.

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I still don’t understand the mentality that pro players speak for all? I’m new to the FGC is it a norm?