Buffs and Nerfs thread

[Saitsuofleaves]

Louis...you're pretty much reiterating what everyone's known for a while, no offense.  Yeah, he has major damage, and he's decently safe, and all of that.  It's kind of like that elephant in the room.  We know he has all of that and acknowledge it, yet none of us really talk about it or play with him that much, it's interesting.

[Reiki.Kito]

I dunno.  For just 1 DC, a really hard K' corner combo can give you 477 (The hard part being the dp+A, to dp+C link, but after that, it's cake).

I think it's a bit too early to say Hwa Jai's gonna need nerfs as two drive meter is not really a good investment for that damage. If he did 800-900, I'd think he needed some nerfs. Other than that, I think Hwa's fine and has some pretty good tools to make him good in the game. I think with enough experience and understanding of Hwa Jai, he's not that hard a match-up. If he doesn't have the momentum to keep pressuring you, he's not gonna get it back.

[FataCon]

If Hwai has 1-2 bars after that, we're talking 600-700 damage in the corner. Holy shit.

Full HD bar and 2 meters in the corner is 900+ dmg. That's quite a bit. However, like Shen, damage isn't everything. Hwa has a tough time getting in against good zoning and against lots of pressure.

[Tikok]

For just 1 DC, a really hard K' corner combo can give you 477 (The hard part being the dp+A, to dp+C link, but after that, it's cake).

Can you please tell us what that combo is? I would like to try it a bit~

[Reiki.Kito]

For just 1 DC, a really hard K' corner combo can give you 477 (The hard part being the dp+A, to dp+C link, but after that, it's cake).

Can you please tell us what that combo is? I would like to try it a bit~

hop C, st.C, f+A, qcf+A, f+D, qcb+B, qcb+B (whiff), dp+A (1), [DC] qcf+C, f+D, qcb+B, qcb+B (whiff), dp+C, f+D

That does 477 damage for 1 drive.

[Tikok]

Thank you~!

[LouisCipher]

Full HD bar and 2 meters in the corner is 900+ dmg. That's quite a bit. However, like Shen, damage isn't everything. Hwa has a tough time getting in against good zoning and against lots of pressure.

My problem isn't so much the damage, technically every character can Touch of Death you if they have the meter and do the right Hyper Drive combos. My problem is just how easy it is to do that damage with Hwai.

[FataCon]

My problem isn't so much the damage, technically every character can Touch of Death you if they have the meter and do the right Hyper Drive combos. My problem is just how easy it is to do that damage with Hwai.

Now I don't even understand your point. Earlier in the thread, you said:

My problem is how much damage that does and how easy it is to do.

What?

And how easy is what? The combos themselves? If so, the difficulty of a combo only really matters if it's too hard. You don't nerf a character because a combo is too easy. You nerf a character because of utility reasons or straight up damage reduction.

You also can't mean Hwa gets damage easily because of options, compared to someone like Robert who has a jumping command crossup and a drive-cancelable proximity unblockable, because he just doesn't have that kind of utility.

Lastly, it's Hwa. Hwa Jai.

[LouisCipher]

Lastly, it's Hwa. Hwa Jai.

Excuse me, Princess!

Let me revise my point a little bit. What worries me more, is how easy it is to do that 500 + damage with Hwai with full Hyper Drive meter. Other characters can do that much, of course, but it costs at least 1-2 meters and they aren't piss-easy to do.

Does that make sense?

[FataCon]

Let me revise my point a little bit. What worries me more, is how easy it is to do that 500 + damage with Hwai with full Hyper Drive meter. Other characters can do that much, of course, but it costs at least 1-2 meters and they aren't piss-easy to do.

Regardless of how easy a combo is, you can't dismiss how damaging is. That is fundamentally more important than how easy a combo is. I gave an example of how much damage Hwa can output and you dismissed it, yet you're bringing up damage numbers again. In that case, it's easy to get 700+ damage with Hwa with 0 stocks/full drive.

Here's a relevant topic example to show that I'm not discussing this for the sake of arguing:

Shen. He can kill a character with the least amount of hits, outside of dropkick Raiden. He also has a command grab and answers to zoning. Not top tier.

Does that make sense?

[LouisCipher]

I suppose so, but only time will tell.

I think Raiden needs buffs...

The irony is outstanding.

His Air Grab looks all right, but to be honest I haven't had much of a chance at testing it. I don't want to even touch the Drop Kick, would it be possible to find a happy middle with the Drop Kick?

Some basic ideas I have:

Can combo off of Giant Bomb into Air Grab without Drive Cancelling (giant bomb is unsafe as hell, might as well give him something of benefit).

Can link off of standing C into Command Grab.

Can super cancel poison mist (ala Papa Shango) into either Super without using EX Poison Mist.

Possibly Super Cancel command grab into Grab Super? May as well, Clark and Goro can do it free.

[BioBooster]

I don't want to even touch the Drop Kick, would it be possible to find a happy middle with the Drop Kick?

Something interesting: you can use DKs in HD combos. In a previous blog post, they showed raiden doing two DKs in an HD combo stating that the DKs were charged at the beginning of the combo. That's pretty decent I think. 

Can super cancel poison mist (ala Papa Shango) into either Super without using EX Poison Mist.

You can link the super raiden drop super after A poison breath - just like linking the head crusher off of A poision. The timing is a bit tight JFYI

Haha, although completely playable, I wouldn't mind seeing slight buffs to make things more interesting. How about super armor on his crazy train where crazy train has more range, juggled better, moved faster, has more punches and just charges everything down like the name implies and goes through fbs? too much? < of course you can just block it, but would be great if he had a cut through all the bull shit move.

or how about just being able to cancel off of the second hit of close s.C?

[cableG]

In fact is good..

[Matt Alder]

Let me revise my point a little bit. What worries me more, is how easy it is to do that 500 + damage with Hwai with full Hyper Drive meter. Other characters can do that much, of course, but it costs at least 1-2 meters and they aren't piss-easy to do.

Regardless of how easy a combo is, you can't dismiss how damaging is. That is fundamentally more important than how easy a combo is. I gave an example of how much damage Hwa can output and you dismissed it, yet you're bringing up damage numbers again. In that case, it's easy to get 700+ damage with Hwa with 0 stocks/full drive.

Here's a relevant topic example to show that I'm not discussing this for the sake of arguing:

Shen. He can kill a character with the least amount of hits, outside of dropkick Raiden. He also has a command grab and answers to zoning. Not top tier.

Does that make sense?

Let me preface this by saying that I am both a Shen player and a Hwa player. I generally get better results with Shen than I do with Hwa if I'm playing against lower-level players. That being said:

Shen's meterless damage is actually damn near the lowest in the whole game, and he has literally no defensive or offensive tools at all aside from that grab or abusing invulnerability on his EXDM, both of which cost meter. His non-EX grab is slow to come out and gives piss-poor damage and no oki or anything useful really. Shen needs either a 1-frame link or FULL HD Gauge to do ANYTHING from a low hit, and his only overhead is so negative on block that Shen is asking to eat a full combo if he ever does it. So let's see, Shen with meter has... a good command grab, weak lows, super horrible overhead, no safe way to get close to opponents with better pokes than him (about half of the cast). Shen with full HD Gauge can do an HD combo from low, which is a feature that every single character has. If damage was the only thing that mattered, Shen would STILL not be top tier, because outside of HD mode he's STILL beaten by at least 6 other characters just off the top of my head, and WITH HD combos he's basically tied with almost every other character in the game in terms of damage.

Literally the only aspect that Shen would be top tier for is ease of use.


However for 1.5-ish drive and 1 meter (to drink) Hwa can in fact literally kill you from full health anywhere in the stage, but he also has invulnerable shoryu attacks which can lead to over 850 damage and a command grab that deals 400 damage for 1 stock, making it the single highest damage 1-stock move in the game. He also has safe pressure, waaaaay better pokes than Shen and beats him outright in every single department EXCEPT for ease of use. Yes Hwa's damage is low when he has 0 meter and 0 drive, but he can still poke and pressure MUCH better than Shen can, and he builds meter faster than almost any other character in the game, while Shen builds it extremely slowly. The character balance in XIII is quite good, but there are some characters that are obviously outclassed in every single aspect of the game by other characters. I mean, with 1 drive and 0 stock Hwa can deal more damage than Shen's best non-HD 1 drive 2 stock combos.

Louis is right about Hwa being broken. He's probably the strongest character in the game, period. People just haven't quite caught on yet. Louis doesn't quite have the numbers even close to as high as they actually are, but he certainly gets the fact that Hwa's potential damage and ability to land hits are insanely good compared to any other character in the game.

The nerf that I propose is actually quite needed, and it's also very easy to see why. If you make Hwa less able to gain meter while drunk (as opposed to how it is now, where he actually gains MORE meter while drunk), he'll be fairly balanced. Just cut his meter gain in half, or maybe even worse. As it is now, he has midscreen drive combos which build over 4 meter back.

[zeech]

Buff button mapping UI.
Buff netcode.