Yes, Fulgore has been, and probably still is, the best character in the game. There is literally nothing that this character is not good at except quickly building meter - which his instinct solves for him twice a fight at least. Fulgore on full pips is just silly. And current medium laser is nearly broken - great range for neutral space control, has solid pushback, fantastic recovery, and can be canceled into an uppercut on the off chance that someone psychically predicts it and tries to shadow through it. Fulgore is really, really, good. Only thing stopping him from being an absolute monster is his relative difficulty to play at high level. I’d actually tend to agree that he didn’t get all that much for S3 - but he didn’t really need anything either.
Wulf’s instinct nerfs have people way more salty that I would have thought. As someone who mained Sadira for a long time, I can safely say that worse things have, in fact, happened to an instinct as part of a balance update. The only thing I’ll give you all is that at low level, feral cancel probably isn’t the sexiest of instinct abilities in the game. The issue is that at mid-to-high (and especially high) level, feral cancels are unimaginably good. A Wulf who pops instinct on top of you is a Wulf that is going to open you up, and when he does so, is going to thereafter take a lifebar from you. Wulf in instinct is very nearly unbreakable, and the instant you get locked out, you’re eating 60-75% damage combos almost guaranteed. That was a problem. Trust me, if you learn to use them properly, feral cancels will still be very, very, good. Being able to cancel any mix-up attempt into a safe cancel that keeps the opponent stuck in place waiting for the next mix-up is really, really good. Even with the refresh nerf, Wulf’s instinct offense is going to be scary. And flipout resets are going to be incredible - they might take some getting used to, but trust me, those things are going to open an entirely new realm of Saberwulf offense.
Final point on Wulf is that an instinct doesn’t actually have to have a bunch of special properties to be very useful or good. The “only” thing Sadira’s instinct does is let her drop a web and do jump cancels (the latter of which is not useful at low level). The “only” thing Maya’s instinct does is return her daggers to her. The “only” thing Fulgore’s instinct does is spin his reactor up to max. Thunder “just” gets an invincible dash-through. An instinct doesn’t have to be some overpowered tool that guarantees a lifebar.
What do you want from barrage? Currently it’s easily the best combo trait in the game, but somehow I don’t think that’s what you’re concerned about.
95% of normals in any given fighting game are too fast to be reacted to. The skill in using a catch-counter like Hisako’s is usually in predicting an attack before you see it, and countering accordingly, which – no matter how we sugarcoat it – always involved some amount of guesswork or luck. That doesn’t mean there is no skill involved.
Little worried about Wulf. Not sure nerfing him to the ground was very reasonable. However i should also probably wait until i play it myself. The overhead slow down is my biggest concern as that is one of his staple moves. I dont know, he just seemed to get nothing in return to make the nerfs fair.
Mostly because the build in KI WC had only one stage, no select screen, no customization, and no online connectivity since they’re completely retooling lighting and graphical settings. While it comes with all of the changes to the characters and such, it’s going to be a while before the rest of the game is ready.
It’s a great combo trait, I just don’t like that it locks me in to doing it if I press the wrong button.
I know, I know. Don’t mash buttons. I don’t. Really. I try to fight deliberately, yet it still happens every now and then. Every so often and hey, nobody’s perfect. Every other character can forgive this, but not TJ.
I’m not salty about it, even if it sounds like I am. I’d just like it if they took another crack at it. They’re not going to though, so it’s cool. He’s still a great character regardless.
I’m not sure what they could do about this, anyway. Obviously just letting you out of barrage gets us back to what was so broken about it in the first place.
Maybe they could put barrage on MP+MK, so that people get why it’s so good? Or they could take the CAM approach and put barrage on back+button, I guess.
Wulf may have lost damage in Instinct but its the same reason Fulgore and Cinder didn’t get flip outs. They already have tools good enough. The Diving Slash animation needs work, but is a nice addition to get in. Then come flip outs and staggers, which with his run speed and dash through abilities make for some cool ideas.
Right now, you’re judging these changes without playing them against the changes made to other characters. Simply put, we haven’t seen the bigger picture yet so hold off on being so negative.
All true. But you seem to be dismissing that this already risky move has just doubled in risk. My point was that there is some safety in guessing when the counter receives 2/3 attack levels. With the new change you HAVE to read their mind.
The really annoying thing will be the attacks that LOOK like they’re low, when they’re actually mid, and visa versa.
Sorry, I wasn’t ignoring that. It’s a nerf, for sure. I just took issue with the implications you drew. I suppose if you’re taking it as a given that an attack is coming under certain circumstances (which you can’t, but let’s say you do) then they’re adding a mid/low guess if you go for the parry, which of course makes the parry worse (and encourages your opponent to attack).
I guess it’s up to you to figure out which circumstances are most severely impacted, and decide whether you’ve received adequate compensation in the buff department. I suspect there are a lot of situations in neutral where the change just doesn’t matter because your opponent can’t present a credible low threat, but it’s probably going to be a problem on wakeup when your opponent is standing right over you.
For me personally, it was the go-to counter for enemies that like to meaty me on wakeups. The slow wind-up on standing overheads was usually visible enough to react to.
I know her counter can be really good. But it’s hard to rely on when people are trying to bait you for it because it’s so easy to punish. It’s already a mental tug-o-war. Making it worse feels unnecessarily harsh.
As you say though, we’ll have to see how it measures up with the other changes.
Hm, making the high counter not cover mids seems like it would’ve been the kinder nerf. Seems like they really wanted to push Hisako in a different direction.
Yeah I totally get that it’s good. I really like it, actually. I just don’t like the getting locked in part if I accidentally enter it. Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that I should get a free pass out of it if I accidentally lock in to autobarrage. I’m more saying that I’d like it to be harder to accidentally get locked in to it to begin with.
Back+button is a great idea. Anything that’s a slight tweak, that allows me to be more deliberate in entering in to it would be perfect. I’m not asking for a full redesign of how autobarrage works or what it does. I like both of those parts a lot actually. Just a small layer on the front end to help prevent the occasional unintended entrance in to it. That’s all I’m asking for.
Agree 100% that Diving Slash needs work in the animation department. I really hope Season 3 doesn’t ship with that move looking that way, as it seems a bit awkward to say the least, though I must say that I love what the move does.
As for his instinct, I’m personally not happy about it at all. I get that he got more stuff in other areas and that from a utility standpoint, his tools are pretty awesome. I actually didn’t mind losing the damage nerf on his instinct, but I still feel like they should replace it with something regardless of the bigger picture.
The reason for that is him hulking out and doing extra damage was something both tangible and fun for players of all levels, while his feral cancels are a great tool for mid and higher level players. It’s not like you can just tell the lower mid and lower level players to “get better” and enjoy the higher level stuff because that’s simply not realistic.
I’d argue that it’d be nice to replace his damage nerf with something smaller, like a contextual damage buff. I’ve mentioned the ability to manually tack fire bats on to the end of his enders (up to four depending on ender level) while instinct is on. Now maybe each one does less than chip level damage, but that doesn’t overly matter. What matters is that it’s something people of all skill levels can see and do.
Now, I’m not one of those that are married to the idea of fire bats being in the game because had them 20 years ago. It’s just a suggestion. But I do think that he should have something visible and tangible and fun to use that people of all skill levels can enjoy and have fun with. To me, that’s not really solved by a “wait for the bigger picture” approach. Just my opinion though. You make some great points here.
They really shouldn’t have reworked spinals sucking ability as it takes away a lot of his uniqueness (he does what omen can do now derp) and his fun factor. They can nerf his vortex and the skulls disappearing thing but getting rid of his main ability and nerfing the vortex was a bad move. Doubt I will continue to play him if he doesn’t feel fun to play anymore.
This is incorrect. Omen locks out your USAGE of Shadow, but you can still gain meter while the bars are locked.
Spinal is going to freeze BOTH your Shadow and Instinct meters where they are (with two different curse types obviously) while the curses are in effect, meaning that no matter what he does to you, you won’t be earning that extra bit of meter you need for a Shadow Counter or Instinct activation. This is critical, because now that he can curse people mid combo, he can really cost you large chunks of both meters at once because you won’t get the meter gain from his enders.
Big big difference, and I’m not even a Spinal player.
Or they could take the CAM approach and put barrage on back+button, I guess.