Characters potentially going High Tier?
Tier, Smier! The only time I let tiers effect me, is if their "top tier" stuff makes them feel TOO cheesy, and I start having to apologize for winning out on stuff that no other character would have been able to deal with. Those victories aren't satisfying for me, or the opponent; similiar to how winning with Wolverine on Normal MVC3, with no real knowledge on the character going in, feels pretty hollow.
Even though Andy got some nice buffs, they really aren't THAT ridiculous. Take into consideration, for instance, that Leona has 2 multi-hit close normals, and a command normal. Or that Robert's always had a 2 hit close normal, but barely anyone seems to use it in the arcade... I don't think it's too much of a buff, to make things work as intended, y'know?
The only thing I'm really confused about, is how Andy gets to have a cancellable Target Combo, yet Mai's isn't. Would have been a nice combo-opener for Hissatsu Shinobi Bachi. Is her standing
cancellable on it's own?
Anyway, Andy also got the same nerf that many characters are getting, "Remove braindead reversals!". Though there was no mention of his EX Kuuhadan getting reduced guard damage. Maybe they think it's fair since it's EX?
Andy's suppose to be "The Human Weapon" though, so it's nice to see him become a swiss army knife of techniques.
Am I the only one who see all these changes like some kind of "let's buff every one"...?
I'm not sure about Iori and Liz's buff (do they really need a buff?), and I don't like Andy's buffs at all. I think Andy was fine, and B>D cancelable is unnecessary. Why Mai's B>D is not cancelable when is worst than Andy in arcade version?
Liz needed a reason for people to play her different. She was a stagnant character in the arcade, who had a list of moves created for her, but no reason to use but 1 or 2. Her buffs and nerfs do a good job encouraging this.
Iori's throw buff is pretty nice too. His command throw combo was pretty inconsistent for many players, and this made it easy to mess up. Also, with Flames Iori being introduced, want to make sure the characters are not redundant.
I think they're doing a good job at making each character have a reason to be played. something that gives them a unique flavor. This is also an important aspect of "balance", in a more derivative sense; you want people to be attracted to the whole cast.