That’s fine then. I vote arbiter.
oh lol looks like i cant troll in the forums, even when im joking with a friend.
Regardless, I think the best character with all instinct is RAAM, he gain the ability to move and absurb your hits, this move and make you stagger which initiates a combo, combos are hard to see thus you are getting immediate and heavy damage.
I choose Eyedol because…
I don’t have to explain it, you already know. lol
You’ve got a split decision I take it…
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I voted ARIA, but I could see solid arguments made for Eyedol, Sadira and probably Raam as well.
RAAM’s Instinct is incredibly detrimental outside of a combo. It’s powerful, but I’ve won more matches because RAAM couldn’t see me.
I still maintain Sadira, since she would have infinite webs, jump cancel everything, and be able to extend hard to break areal combos. 
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ARIA, gargos and shago aren’t allowed due to them being able to leave and re-enter instinct whenever they want.
Reasonably certain that Infil voted for Jago, even though he didn’t leave a comment.
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*shrug * If he made his vote with an eye towards Aria actually staying in her instinct for the duration of the fight, then I’m fine with it. This poll and discussion isn’t exactly scientific - so long as the characters are more or less playing by the same instinct rules it’s fine.
Hey it’s your topic not mine.
Yeah I could see that, but I’m really interested mostly in the “why”, not the “what”.
Infil, you, and several people around have really interesting opinions and a very amusing and instructive way to write it. I really enjoy reading them
I’m going Jago. He gets so much out of it and his normally useful fireballs become just insane. He builds meter like crazy with fireballs making shadow fireball nearly always available and if you can’t count on the thing ending you are always just a hit confirm away from a 25% life swing.
RAAM’s kryll shield is good for the constant damage, but the visibility is overrated. RAAM can’t see either. Eyedol is for sure up there, along with Wulf and, I think Cinder.
Had some follow-up thoughts on this that I never put down. Looking at the four criteria I laid out (copied below), here are a few of my thoughts on some of the stronger characters in this little thought experiment.
- How does this instinct affect pressure/the ability to open the opponent up?
- How does this instinct affect expected life swing upon hit?
- How does this instinct affect the neutral?
- How does this instinct affect defense?
Excluding Tusk for the reasons stated elsewhere, I think the characters I like in this competition are Jago, Omen, and somewhat surprisingly even to me, Hisako.
Jago gets the nod because permanent +2 is really good, and any touch->life regen->cashout is really, really good. Jago’s fireballs actually do a decent chunk of damage, so he’d still be able to do good damage, while also healing himself for at least moderate amounts any time he got an opening. So his instinct makes his pressure super scary (plus frames in addition to standard double fireball mixups), swings life heavily on any confirm, and gives him loads of extra health to work with throughout the fight.
Omen is an interesting case, because his instinct is less notable IMO for potential raw damage swing than sheer, overwhelming strength in the neutral and maintaining pressure. He gets the same +2 offense as Jago, with absolutely stupid potential for locking out shadow meter for essentially the entire game. An always-instinct Omen would be a character who you probably would almost never get to use a shadow move against - even getting hit by his reversal would lock your meter down. The fact that the defense would essentially never be able to shadow counter or tack on shadow damage or cash out juggles is a big deal, and bolsters Omen’s offense, defense, and neutral in potent ways.
Someone most people would likely dismiss out of hand, I just couldn’t shake that I genuinely think Hisako would be one of the strongest members of the cast in a permanent instinct scenario. Infinite wrath makes her pressure a lot more scary to retaliate against (counter all attacks vs descent cancel to make throws whiff, near-immunity to shadow counters), and while normal counter is bad on defense, instinct counter is very, very good. Either you get thrown for little damage, or they’re doing something that loses to you being patient (neutral jump, trying to bait counter). Hisako with permanent instinct is a much, much more difficult character to pressure safely, and her rewards for being right would often exceed your reward for being right. While her neutral in perma-instinct wouldn’t skyrocket, she’d also get access to the free use of her amazing normals, and any trade off any hit would generally wind up with the opponent eating a combo.
So she gets (slightly) better pressure and neutral and (much) better defense, but what I think really brings her into this top 3 discussion is that Hisako has the potential for massive life swings in instinct. I genuinely think it’s one of the biggest life swing instincts in the game. She gets absolutely stupid reset opportunities (overhead, low, command grab) off any touch, and infinite wrath to do it all means she would get to go nuts on offense in a way that she can’t right now. I can take a lifebar in three unreactable resets with Hisako in instinct, and do it in about 10 seconds in game time. That’s extremely potent.
And then a big reason why I think she belongs at or near the top - she fights all the other top tier infinite-instinct characters very well. She almost alone in the cast could deal with the broken permanent-instinct Tusk, and she does well against both Jago and Omen because neither character gets to seriously press their +2 frame advantage because of the threat of counter. She massively outdamages Omen and negates his cross-ups, and doesn’t really rely on shadows either for damage or cashing out. And against Jago, her ability to do ridiculous burst damage via resets has the potential to somewhat mitigate his life swing capabilities.
I don’t know that I could vote for her in this poll as the very best just because I feel like her tools would need a real master to showcase them, but I can honestly say that I’d be willing to put my infinite-instinct Hisako against any other infinite-instinct character in the game, and that I think I could win that fight. She has the life swing potential, the defense, and the tools to go up against really any of the other characters in the game at their very best. Aria is probably the only character in the game that I’d have beating her in this scenario.
Honorable mention to Eyedol, who I would write about, but this post is already too long. Also, eff Eyedol 
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Worth noting, though, that omen’s instinct prevents him from getting reliable manuals out of fireball when using it to pressure. The extra animation for the bonus fireball doesn’t have the same manual window, and I actually think it has additional recovery that gives him worse frame advantage on block. Considering the strength of locking out meters and the buffed frame data it’s still a good instinct but I think it’s noteworthy that it weakens one of his best pressure tools.
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Mira, easy
When he’s not comboing the speed slows dramatically but doesn’t stop iirc
Eyedol, Aganos, RAAM, Jago