Buffs and Nerfs thread

[Reiki.Kito]

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.

Unless it's a character that you can't do anything about and have to play a completely different mindset, I don't think Hwa's as dangerous as he looks. On the matter of Shen and Hwa, who is more braindead and harder, I've faced a lot of Shens and alot of Hwas. At any level, Shen is much more annoying. You forget, without using any meter, his Woo Punch break can lead you into more pressure. His hop D and hop CD are one of the best normals in the game. That leads you to do literally free pressure until you get a hit confirm or someone interrupts you. Playing Maxima, I can just guard point his jump attacks. Sometimes, I can't. Blocking just leads to more pressure if you're playing a good Shen. That alone makes Shen, a meterless Shen, much more dangerous than Hwa. At higher levels of skill, he can cancel his punch almost instantly and lead into another attack while you're still in block stun.

So he doesn't have an uppercut, he doesn't need one. If you could DP, you probably had enough time to react to it or predicted it. In that case, he's got plenty of anti-air normals and moves. For one, time it right, you can do his EX woo punch as an anti-air and super cancel it. If you time it right, you can even use far C and that's a free super right there. Qcf+B, d.C, neutral hop D. If they're jumping that high, you could just run under them and cross them up.

Hwa is dangerous, I'll say that, but to say because he has all these tools makes him superior to Shen is an opinion I feel is misinformed. You can't compare them; they play completely different and require a whole other mind set. For one, any of Hwa's specials can be punished. They're not safe to normal throws, some aren't even on block. If you know Hwa, it's not a hard match up. And lastly, almost any string he does, on the first hit, you can use one meter and GCAB out of it. At that point, he's either in autopilot or he doesn't follow it up because he can't. If you GCAB before his slide, he can't cancel it into anything safe and it's like -8 on block. It's even worse on whiff. Same thing with his Dragon Kick/Golden Heel knockoff.

[cableG]

You shouldn't do it all the time like I do, mix it in so nobody gets used to it, but you can set up someone for a guard crush if they're too scared to do anything.(pigtail cable)

[Dandy J]

strength of hwajai is he can nearly kill a character with only drive when he is drunk from an invincible move. no one else can do it like he can

[Matt Alder]

Hwa is dangerous, I'll say that, but to say because he has all these tools makes him superior to Shen is an opinion I feel is misinformed. You can't compare them; they play completely different and require a whole other mind set. For one, any of Hwa's specials can be punished. They're not safe to normal throws, some aren't even on block. If you know Hwa, it's not a hard match up. And lastly, almost any string he does, on the first hit, you can use one meter and GCAB out of it. At that point, he's either in autopilot or he doesn't follow it up because he can't. If you GCAB before his slide, he can't cancel it into anything safe and it's like -8 on block. It's even worse on whiff. Same thing with his Dragon Kick/Golden Heel knockoff.

Are you kidding me? That's not even how Hwa is played. Hwa doesn't need to telegraph anything, he can literally do over 1k damage without HD from cr.B. Also his qcf+A is safe on block, his qcb+D is +6 (holy shit) on block and he can link a combo after it or just keep you in blockstun with cr.B. Seriously, Hwa really has death combos from cr.B or basically any random light normal or any random hit at all.

So he doesn't have an uppercut, he doesn't need one. If you could DP, you probably had enough time to react to it or predicted it. In that case, he's got plenty of anti-air normals and moves. For one, time it right, you can do his EX woo punch as an anti-air and super cancel it. If you time it right, you can even use far C and that's a free super right there. Qcf+B, d.C, neutral hop D. If they're jumping that high, you could just run under them and cross them up.

Yes, so for 2 meter and 1 drive you can get around 300 (a guess, not sure on the exact numbers, but could be even less) on anti air with Shen. For 1 stock+1 drive Hwa gets 712 damage and gains a full meter back on his anti air. My point is that Hwa and Shen actually are very similar, aside from the fact that basically Hwa gets WAY more damage from every situation (aside from Shen's EX grab) and he also has way more tools.

If you want to compare their normals, Hwa's j.D is almost identical to Shen's j.D except that if he ever nails you with a jump-in with his j.D, he's probably going to deal around 800 damage with just 1 drive and 1 stock. Hwa's j.CD is better air-to-air than any move that Shen has (not saying much... Shen literally has no air-to-air at all), his j.CD can also be combod after without a counterhit for over 200 damage, and then with a counterhit... from 600 to 900 damage depending on if it's near the corner or not.

The real issue is that people don't actually know Hwa at all, they've just seen people playing him kinda... wrong for a long time now. Once people actuall know the kind of damage that Hwa gets from random hits and how many tools he actually has, he'll be considered broken, for sure.

This isn't my video... but it does show a bit of how much Hwa actually gets from a random jump-in. Keep in mind that he doesn't actually have to do this whole combo to already be doing broken damage, and also that he can do this FROM A cr.B and he can do it from anywhere in the stage! By just the half-way point in this combo the opponent was already just about stunned, had taken 750 damage, and no super had even been used yet (aside from the drink). The combo effectively gained Hwa meter BACK instead of costing it, and he did it with literally just a drive cancel, and nothing more.
KOF XIII [Hwa Combo DMG 1238]

And if you think that this combo is not very realistic, I've done a variation of it (over 1k damage, not going to bother with a 1200 combo) in actual matches before.

[Reiki.Kito]

I'm not going to call you false, but I do not honestly believe Hwa Jai's qcb+D is +6 frames on block. Recovery would have to be zero or the blockstun would have to be ridiculously long.

Other than that, getting big damage off of landing a hit isn't such a massive upset in KOF worth toning him down. He's definitely not comparable to Raiden in arcade. I do acknowledge that he can do a lot of damage, but I do not see how that makes him bonkers broken. In my opinion, if you know the character and what they're going for in this game, it's only a matter of stopping it or countering it. Hwa Jai's no different. He's not going to cram his 900 damage into someone experienced because that's not going to just happen.

[Dandy J]

in the corner when all hits connect its +. idk the exact number but 6 sounds fine

[Reiki.Kito]

in the corner when all hits connect its +. idk the exact number but 6 sounds fine

I'm pretty sure it's also similar to Terry's where if you block it high or low it has more frame advantage, but +6 is quite a lot. Either way, being a multi-hit move, it can still be GCABed on any of the hits.

[sibarraz]

Hwa Jai is his excellent normals and good pressure game, sadly, some match ups for him are really bad, and being drunk is not that effective since first you need to be drunk, and second, need to land the combo

[Matt Alder]

I'm not going to call you false, but I do not honestly believe Hwa Jai's qcb+D is +6 frames on block. Recovery would have to be zero or the blockstun would have to be ridiculously long.

Other than that, getting big damage off of landing a hit isn't such a massive upset in KOF worth toning him down. He's definitely not comparable to Raiden in arcade. I do acknowledge that he can do a lot of damage, but I do not see how that makes him bonkers broken. In my opinion, if you know the character and what they're going for in this game, it's only a matter of stopping it or countering it. Hwa Jai's no different. He's not going to cram his 900 damage into someone experienced because that's not going to just happen.

Yeah, his qcb+D is +6 on block, it has basically no recovery at all. You can link it into a close C very easily for true blockstun or just to combo after it.

Hwa is in fact completely broken, people just haven't quite noticed it yet for some reason. Nobody seems to even know how Hwa really works. He gets most characters' HD combos worth of damage from his 1 stock + 1 drive B&Bs from low normals and from invulnerable shoryus that can easily be used against hops or fireballs or ground normals. If you want to argue that a good player will never get hit by cr.B or an invulnerable shoryu or a crossup j.D or a j.CD air-to-air that beats even Takuma's (and can cross-up and be combod after even without counterhit) or a stand B at max range or a close C frametrap after qcb+D or a 0 frame grab DM or one of the many other tools Hwa has for landing hits, then we might as well say that a good player could never get hit by any attacks from any character. Hwa can literally hit you for 700+ from ANY of those random hits (aside from the grab DM, which is more of a fear tool than anything else, since nobody likes to eat 343 damage followed by a meaty crossup).

But if you take away Hwa's meter gain during drunk mode, then he would actually be more like Shen or Maxima, relying on having lots of meter and drive in order to get big damage. Right now he can build back drive and meter in higher numbers than his combos even cost, making him basically a character with infinite meter and high damage. If you look at that video that I posted, the shocking thing about it is not the damage that he gets (though that is shocking), it's the fact that he starts this combo with just the meter to drink and less than full HD gauge. And he gets over 1200 damage with these resources from midscreen.

[BioBooster]

And look at what has been done recently for climax:


Hwa
- Changed cr.B so that it can be HD bypassed.


D-:

[LouisCipher]

After playing Hwa a lot I don't really think he needs nerfs. The thing is that he can't really do too much unless he's Drunk AND has at least 1 Drive Cancel set and even then it's difficult to land that D SRK. If they do a normal jump and you hit them at the maximum height of the their jump, you cannot DC into big damage. The only thing you can do is either another B SRK or straight super and if you hit them midscreen you have to reverse your inputs unless you have them in the corner.

He doesn't have much pressure. Other than standing D (which he can get sweeped if you're reckless) the only other thing he has that's relatively safe is jumping CD and air SRK or B Dragon Tail, the Blockstun left by the CD should leave you completely safe, I think.

And trust me, if he guesses wrong with that invulnerable D SRK, he's free as fuck.

[Matt Alder]

After playing Hwa a lot I don't really think he needs nerfs. The thing is that he can't really do too much unless he's Drunk AND has at least 1 Drive Cancel set and even then it's difficult to land that D SRK. If they do a normal jump and you hit them at the maximum height of the their jump, you cannot DC into big damage. The only thing you can do is either another B SRK or straight super and if you hit them midscreen you have to reverse your inputs unless you have them in the corner.

He doesn't have much pressure. Other than standing D (which he can get sweeped if you're reckless) the only other thing he has that's relatively safe is jumping CD and air SRK or B Dragon Tail, the Blockstun left by the CD should leave you completely safe, I think.

And trust me, if he guesses wrong with that invulnerable D SRK, he's free as fuck.

Yeah, the D shoryu is way unsafe, but to be fair, what shoryu isn't? Any blocked/whiffed shoryu allows for a full combo as punishment, but I can't think of other shoryus that can give well over 800 damage on hit. And yeah, it's true that he always has to be drunk, but the issue is that being drunk has literally no downside at all, and since he gains back more meter while drunk, he can viably just stay that way almost constantly. But yeah, sober Hwa is quite weak, it's his only downside. My point is that it's not really Hwa that's broken, it's his drink that's broken. He simply gains back too much from it, and it essentially costs nothing to use. It's just the drink that needs some nerfs.

As for the climax buff to his cr.B, he really... didn't need that. First of all, Hwa doesn't even need HD combos to begin with, and second of all he could already just do cr.Bx2 into s.B, d/f+B into HD activate, or cr.B, cr.C, d/f+B into HD activate, so it's kinda a pointless buff. Doesn't really give him anything he didn't already have a better version of.

I dunno, whatever. If people think I'm crazy for thinking that Hwa is S+ tier, then that's fine with me. I mean, if SNK doesn't figure out how crazy he is before Climax is out, then I guess we're stuck with him as he is, and as a Hwa player I'm perfectly content with that.

[Dandy J]

its not a buff its a bug fix and it virtually doesnt affect the game in any way

[Running Wild]

I want Ryo to have his Renbuken back.

[BioBooster]

Heh, don't get me started...

He only has 4 specials now and doesn't have:

raijin setsu
raijin go
renbuken
bottle cutter
ryoute tsuki
kohou shippu ken

He could really use raijin setsu and renbuken would be a good guard punisher/combo maker in XIII.

Sad thing is there's too much clashing with robert for renbuken, not to mention that all the other kyokugens have cmd throws. The really sad thing is him not having an air cmd crossup like he HAD in AoF. Also, we won't be seeing his air fireballs with Yuri in the mix.

Alright here it is, even if they keep him a pure striker, I want kohou shippu ken, and raijin setsu. The former to give him more DC ability midscreen and the latter to get him in and deal with fb spam. Of course I would like EX raijin to give him a ground bound or something cool like that.

Now, to be a bit original vs the rest of his dojo-mates, how about the ground punish fb he had in AoF III. That would be the shizz. -As very few in the cast can punish downed opponents rt now.

(all that comes to mind is EX Iori, Goro and (EX Kyo in very specific combo situations))