So how do you feel about S3 and the balance changes on your mains so far?

General Discussion
1

Hey there! I know it’s only been a couple days since this rebalance with Season 3 but I feel like those who play this game as much as I do should already have a good understanding of their characters tweaks.

As far as the general balances goes such as all heavy punches breaking armor is amazing. Fighting a good Aganos or Glacius player is not as scary anymore. Also the character selection screen looks amazing! I’m glad they removed the Season 1 & Season 2 on the older screen, now it looks more professional.

I main Hisako/Maya/Aganos

I feel like Hisako was buffed way more than I was expecting. I was actually expecting all nerfs and no buffs but I got an insanely faster Descent, a Shadow Air On Ryo Zan, and a 50% faster Wrath regen. Hisako is my most used main so I am very happy about the changes. Still gotta get use to not jumping to gain Wrath, that one hurt lol. Low counters not countering mids was expected so that didn’t bother me.

Maya, eh, I don’t know if its just me but I feel like she is slower now, and that is not taking into consideration that her dagger throw speed was decreased. She just feels slower over all. I was surprised she was the rebalance character to be honest. (every one thought Kan-Ra lol). But now that she hits harder I feel like she got buffed. Her new dagger assault thing is okay I guess. Out of my 3 mains I was a bit sad of her balance changes.

Aganos got some nice buffs but the heavy punches breaking armor change sucks for him, though it does not remove chunks so that’s a relief. Loving the speed increase he got for chunking up, that was awesome. Peacemakers spawning 30 frames slower is a huge nerf for me, even if he got more uses out of them. Spamming his Peacemaker throw was about the only good spacing I had to get people off my back. Not upset though his buffs were much needed.

All in all I am really liking Season 3. Can’t wait for Mira, I guess I have a thing for female fighters lol. I used to main Orchid back in Season 1 (never really cared for Sadira or Riptor though) and I just got Kim-Wu to 50. She is awesome!

Anyways, what about y’all? Who thinks their mains got nerfed? I feel like Kan-Ra players might say he was nerfed hard.

2 Likes
2

The mulit-hail and the new Instinct mechanics with the teleport punches for Glacius make him an absolute blast to play with

3

And the fact that his Shatter will hit jumping opponents from a knockdown. Which is a bug.

4

Minus that shatter bug, Glacius’ changes are awesome. So much more mix up potential and his cold shoulder being nerfed makes it a more honest move. Jagos’ changes are simple but really cool as well.

5

I hate this so, so much, because, you see, if the other player is really, really good (regardless of character), thern they should be scare you. The irony here is that the ONLY people that I have witness so far who have been able to use the grounded heavy attacks to ignore my armor successfully were already the people who knew how to beat my Aganos even without it. Everybody else still falls before me. Still, getting hit by Jago’s really fast, frametrapping f+HK or Spinal’s slow, easily punishable d+HK slide is very disheartening.

…and yes, the nerf to the peacemaker is a big 1 for me too. It took long enough before, because it would only respawn if you were grounded. If you were jumping or something it wouldn’t come back. As for throwing it as a projectile, I personally think if that’s all you were doing during instinct, then you were severely under-utilizing it, as it is far better to use it as a full-screen 50-50 mixup that hits with flat damage (which, BTW, was also nerfed, but is still relatively good overall)by simply alternating between d+HP and standing HP. The fact that it now staggers is another big hit (no pun intended) IMO because it doesn’t give Aganos the space he needs, on hit or block. It’s still very easy for the opponent to get in afterwards. That, IMO, was the biggest tool in his arsenal that was lost. I liked that it pushed them away and gave him space. Frankly, I wish it would still do that AND wall-bounce, much like his standing HK, but I digress…

The speed increase of the walls and chunks is nice, but either there isn’t really that much difference with it or I simply haven’t found any more good setups to use them that I didn’t already have prior to S3. At best, so far, it gets you an extra chunk if your opponent blocks an entire shadow payload assault attack (3 instead of 2), and really, it’s probably better to stick with the 2, since you can maintain your speed in that case.

The recycling is nice, in particular, but again, the speed increase that it offers in chunking up or wall setups is not all that different from before, since there’s hardly a scenario where it truly becomes useful BECAUSE of its speed. The real benefit comes from the actual utility of being able to move things around (from peacemaker to chunk to wall and back again).

The character overall has had his weaknesses strengthened while also getting severe nerfs in the process (the biggest of which, wasn’t actually even a nerf for him specifically - it was a nerf for everyone; it just happens to affect him the most). This, to me, almost ruins Aganos, because before S3 he seemed like he was this extreme character with a lot of positives in 1 end of the spectrum (high defense and offense with long reach), but with a lot of drawbacks on the other end of the spectrum (lack of high/low mixups, large hitbox, and slow speed that gets even slower). Now, as a result of the changes, he feels like he’s more even-handed (in other words, he’s been narrowed on the spectrum) and is now less exciting as a result of that. He feels less special or unique, as it were - and that saddens me.

That being said, finally, I do like seeing other Aganos players using their walls more often as a result of the changes. If you’re playing Aganos and saving chunks for armor instead of for wall setups, then you’re doing it wrong. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

6

I love the changes to Kan Ra, Omen, and Aganos. These characters are now more fun then ever.

7

Apparently you haven’t fought EMPEROR Menzo yet.

I fought him as omen.

Omen USED to have a decnt range advantage against Glacius, but now Glacius has insane mix-ups from EVERY part of the screen.

I swear, Season 3 is aimed to make sure NO OONE ever gets good with Omen. HE EVEN GOT UNLISTED NERFS.

8

On block, they still get pushed away the same amount.

On hit, you can now combo, even from nearly full screen away, on reaction if they get hit by a peacemaker throw.

It got way better from S2, not worse.

9

Riptor has been amazing with the buffs she got. Yes, she doesn’t have a recognizable tail flip (in theory it should still be hard to react but in practice it’s stupidly easy). Clever girl went from a situational shadow reversal to a move that I now use for Enders, and even block pressure because of mortars and flipout, although they don’t work properly on Tusk and Kim cough devs. I can mortar or flame carpet or flipout now after the CV.

After a flipout I have many options as I can talon rake into tail flip (flipout’s angle plus the stupid angle changes mean I can’t raw flip out of flipout) head butt into predator, predator anything, sweep, mortar, or grab. Especially if you use it after the new level four Enders, it gets confusing for the opponent on clever girl. Yes, level four Enders work better for me! One unexpected nerf was heavy punch- the inability to go through a wind kick or every other projectile invincible move means any character that has a projectile invincible move with meter you can’t use that move on wakeup (it actually tricks lots of people to block high for some reason).

Mortars. The best scary projectile in the game. It doesn’t do a lot of damage either but it’s the ultimate for riptor. If they just gave her a fireball I would be heavily disappointed. Run up grabs, doing it on their wakeup, after a clever girl, amazing.

I haven’t had the chance to do too many adjusted match ups as the first day I was in the lab downloading the game and then everyone played tusk or rash day one. TJ, Aganos and Glacius are (less) scary because of the easy HK poke.

Overall I’m excited of the changes and game wide changes. Also some oversights like run back HK being fixed in instinct!

10

I tested this in the lab after reading your post in my Aganos vs. S3 thread in the Aganos sub-forum, and I’ve come to discover that it’s really going to just take some time adjusting, which let’s face it, when you’ve been playing this game for as long as I have, is kind of a bummer. I like having mastered a character and showing that to the world. Now, while it’s good to have new tech and continue expanding, I don’t have that feeling any more (yet).

While you’re right about the block-stun and pushback (it was something I never tested myself until now, I’ll admit), it creates this weird disconnect for me. Pre-S3, I could always count on the pushback, on hit or block - that was guaranteed, at the very least, which is why I used it as a pressure tool. Unlike other players though, I wouldn’t spam it to simply do chip damage. I would use it to re-gauge my spacing and start hitting them with the 50/50 overhead/low mixup that the peacemaker provides. Now, post-S3, it’s no longer as good of a tool for pressure. If it hits them, and I don’t follow-up with a long-range attack like your aforementioned shadow natural disaster (which, as I already mentioned in the other thread, I may not have), then that keeps the enemy dangerously close to me where I don’t want them AND I have to wait even longer for the peacemaker to respawn as well.

Actually, now that I think about it, I think the rate at which the peacemaker respawns might be my real concern. Pre-S3, I never liked how it wouldn’t respawn if you jumped - doing so would actually delay the respawn. You can try it, even now in S3 (where it’s actually worse) - go into instinct with Aganos, throw the peacemaker, and then just jump. The next peacemaker will never respawn. I might actually be okay with the delay, provided it would still respawn despite my jumps. At least that way I can jump away and still get my distance and reach if I fail to follow-up on hit.

Will that be considered balanced? Probably not, but IMO, I think it’ll be a wonderful compromise.

11

I dunno dude, fighting games players have to constantly adapt, especially in the modern era. You learn new characters, you learn new games, characters in games you play a lot get changed on you… you need to be malleable as a player. You need to be reprogrammable.

Anyway, yes, I suppose if you hit them with a peacemaker and you don’t have meter to confirm, they will be slightly closer to you than they were in S2. I dunno if this is that big of a deal though. And yes, peacemaker spawns slower. This is mandatory considering all peacemakers are basically chunks now. You could try coming up with some creative uses for your peacemaker that you couldn’t do in S2. Like, say… swing twice, then put it in the ground and pull it back out! If your opponent is far away from you, this is going to be hard to punish, especially if you mix in cr.HK and stuff in between making the wall and pulling it out.

I mean… Aganos can never get Peacemakers while holding up back. I think you know the reasons why.

12

I dropped kan ra smh. He doesnt feel right anymore and his setups are gone

13

First Kan Ra i ran into Bodied me at EVERY range. He is still good.

14

Tell me your secrets to my previous mains

15

Still trying to just figure ARIA out.

16

Omen got some secret nerfs. His Shadow Orda doesn’t last as long, and his regular Orda shield do not go all the way over you any more. You have NO protection from crossups.

2 Likes
17

No doubt hes still good, its just that he requires more work now and im less motivated to re learn him and omen

18

Guess ill stay with rash and arbiter

19

Rash can safely cross the entire screen and get multiple safe option selects and counter-hit set-ups and corner pressure.

I think he is BS and should be nerfed for sure. Pick him if you want to win.

20

I haven’t tested these myself to verify, but assuming true:

  • Most reversals do not protect against crossups
  • Shadow Orda going away faster is probably a good thing considering Omen is virtually untouchable while they’re on (this move is 10x better than S2 shadow Orda)