9

Better than 96 clark?
i wouldn’t say so, granted jubei is a lot of fun to use, in fact maybe one of the most interesting characters to use in any game, i’d even say that he’s not really a grappler, i mean yeah he has loads of command throws, but does he really revolve round them like gief outside of whatever CC or v ism or 96 clark main aim is to land command throws, jubei is just like 98 daimon in some ways, yeah he has them but they are an icing on cake rather than meat and drink

Even if you ranked the by the tiers they fell into into there respective games, jubei was what? mid? lower mid, alpha 2 gief was upper mid, 96 clark was jesus, and yeah daimon was up there to.

10

That’s the thing about Jubei, from a gameplay design standpoint, he’s not like any grappler character I’ve ever seen, especially being a charge based grappler, which was like almost unheard of at the time. He’s got alot of sick mix-up’s involving his cookie throw, cross-ups, frame traps, and unblockable setups with his dash grab, and he can punish unsafe stuff really hard if he has access to his Desperation Move. But yeah, he’s like mid tier at best… but I really like him alot, he’s a really interesting character for sure. I really wish he was used in other games.

But now you have me interested in looking up 96 Clark. I only vaguely remember some really ridiculous things in 96, not a KOF game I played often against other players. I’m really interested though. I’ll have to go check up some stuff on Youtube.

Also can’t forget good ol’ 98 Daimon. He’s a classic.

Speaking of 98, Orochi Yashiro is alot of fun. Just the mind games and hitconfirms with him, it’s delicious. Sadly I never got any good with O.Yashiro (Or 98 in general), which sucks because I love seeing high level O.Yashiro gameplay.

Another character I wanna bring up is Blue Mary in Real Bout Fatal Fury 2. She’s not your traditional grappler either, but her gameplay is pretty much all based around high/low mix-up’s and unblockables. She’s a lower tier character, but once she gets P.Power, she becomes extremely scary, with even more devastating setups, and guard cancels that lead to big damage.

Speaking of Real Bout 2, I think the closest thing to a real grappler in that game is Geese. He gets massive range with his kara, and gets solid damage output off just about any untechable knockdowns thanks to his pursuit grab. And he’s still got the usual Geese bag o’ tricks with a full screen fireball, counters, and really good normals, particularly his sweep, which leads to his pursuit grab if Feint Canceled.

11

Native Impact got second place at Summer Jam by doing that with T Hawk, and nearly won the tournament.

But its the zoner who sets the pace of the match and the grappler has to answer to how theyre being zoned out. As I said, I like the match up of zoner vs grappler if the grappler player is good, but if the grappler player isnt good its just bleh.

Again though its all about the SPD, but in that case its a zoning tool. I mentioned Gief as boring because he just is to me compared to other grapplers out there. You play Hakan and Hawk and Im sorry you were offended by what I said, but at least Hakan is a more interesting character since he has the GG A.B.A. style. Hopefully since you play him youll show how over powered he can be with all the buffs he got.

I dont like bulldogging though you guys, I dont like having to give up so much health for position compared to other ways to get a better position. @bomberman3000 can you explain why this is a better route to go than other things other characters have to gain position?

12

When the grappler gets in on the zoner, they now get to set the pace of the match. It works both ways.

The Native Impact thing is a semi fluke. He’s a fairly solid player overall and he was using the new tools of a lesser seen character to exploit people’s unfamiliarity. He was being a bit wreckless and that was throwing people off.

We’ve explained grapplers to you. We’ve explained why we like grapplers. You’ve just decided to go back a state your preference based on the things you like. What are you trying to accomplish here? What’s the point of trying to have a dialogue if you’re going to be so myopic. If you going to retreat into this, “you’re wrong because Zangief is boring to me” there’s no point.

You’re essentially saying “Justify your character choice to be because as far as I’m concerned grapplers shouldn’t exist”

13

eh, the only grappler I ever liked was cerebellla from skullgirls. I also think kanji from p4a was pretty dope as well, had nice pressure with those long range lightning attacks and anti air grabs. doesnt thunder in KI incorporate grabs into his combos? I heard that was a thing. anyways, I suck ass playing normal grapplers, but I can totally understand why people play them, they are a nice change of pace and are super stronk.

14

I guess my thing is that, why have a character who is only about grabs when you can have other characters with command grabs in the game or at least a strong grab game. And Ive mentioned how I like Blue Mary and Clark in KOF, so Im not 100% against grapplers, but Im against the boring ones, I cant phrase it better than that. Its like they have to do big damage so theyre scary. I mean with zoners their fireballs dont do much damage, but when people are next to them they still have uppercuts and their normals to fight with.

So, why should grapplers have slow movement and why should they do big damage?

15

Read this, it might tell you something about character archetypes:

The basic idea behind this is that Zangief for example, who has strong close range tools and is the traditional grappler, has a hard time to get in, but once he is in, he should be very dangerous and should have it much easier.(damage and executionwise).
You work hard to get in, but you have it easy, if you are close(360+P). You can compare this to a divekick character like Yun, who is also very strong at close range. While he can get in very easily, he has to do much more work, if he is close and wants damage, whereas Zangief can in theory simply grab you. He is also intended to be less scarier then Zangief at close range, but this is of course only theory and in USF4, the “easy to get in” characters also tend to be more scary than the “hard to get in” characters. A failed command grab is much more punishable than a regular throw, so of course a command grab should give you some nice reward, for the risks you are taking.

To have a lot of damage is nice, but if you can´t get into the situations to land this damage consistently, then your high damage won´t help you much. Fireball based character operate rather from mid to far range, they can hit you from or set the game much further away than Gief. No idea, how else I can say it.

16

…I don’t think you really get Street Fighter.

17

Snip

So, why should grapplers have slow movement and why should they do big damage?
[/quote]

Are you trying to be obtuse intentionally?

Have you ever been cornered by Gief with a meaty crouching light? Do you understand the panic that happens in that situation?

Grapplers are on the hunt. They stalk their prey. They induce panic and capitalize on that panic.

18

Instead of saying that, could you say WHY you see I dont understand SF. Explain what you know that I dont. Im trying to learn.

19

My head hurts like hell.

I think everyone in this thread is being trolled colossally.
I hope so, at least.

20

I don’t know whether to challenge this kid to a first to 10 or put him on ignore (we can still do that here, right?)

21

Thanks for linking me to that post :slight_smile:

22

And I want to add I prefer watching wrestling, BJJ and Sambo in MMA if Im watching it over guys causing each other nerve damage punching each other. And I liked pro wrestling for a number of years before I got back into video games.

23

Seems like grapplers are also good defensive characters, they are good against characters who rely on frametraps and pressure, they have both a reversal and an spd at their disposal. Find me a T.Hawk player who just sits there and block on defense.

24

I’m never a fan of these “convince me I’m wrong” threads cause usually the OP wants to do the opposite and convince everyone they are wrong, but I do think grapplers might be the least popular of the SF character archetypes by a noticeable margin and its not hard to see why. Generally no matter who you play, its ideal to turtle or play keep away against a grappler. A lot of people find it boring, or even feel guilty about playing pure keep away.

I feel like devs must understand this too since grapplers are almost never top tier. The only example I can think of is Vanilla 4 and at least in my own community there was a lot of complaining going on about Gief.

25

Yeah to me getting into fighting games its like what I said above, theyre slow boring and do a lot of damage. I dont get why theyre slow and have to do a ton of damage. To me a character like that shouldnt be the best character in the game cause its boring. The Fei Long vs Gief matches during Evo top 8 this year were snore fests, the most out of that top 8 really.

I got called out in the Guilty Gear thread about Potemkin, I dont get why he should be good since he has the least mobility of the characters and isnt flashy. He does a lot of damage though so to me they just gave him that to have something. Then someone said then hed be like Tager if he was just a bad character that they gave big damage to to compensate.

Im not trying to convince other that grapplers suck, my words come out that way though I acknowledge, but no ones given a fundamental perspective on why grapplers should exist except to bog down the fun of the game. I know I shouldnt see it like that, but watching these games and having a fun time is just as important as playing and having fun.

So to me I think grapplers need to not be like Gief and be flashy and more mobile, maybe do a lot of damage, but everyone should do a lot of damage. So be more like the El Fuerte type, and KOF grapplers have good personality except Daimon.

Theres been people saying “You dont know sf” well, teach me SF, this is why I made this thread.

26

Disregarding everything else, developers don’t (or those that do, shouldn’t) try to make “fun” characters the best. The goal of a good development team should be to make everyone equally viable, if for no other reason than to justify the cost of creation for each character in the game; if a character isn’t worth using, nobody will use them - not to mention bad PR and all that stuff. Obviously this is a nigh-unattainable idea, but it’s what a good dev team should strive for.

I put “fun” in quotation marks because “fun” means different things to different people. Otherwise we’d all be using the same character and there’d be no reason to have multi-character rosters.

27

I bet playing a grappler like gief can be fun to some people.

If I made a fighting game I wouldnt just make a zoner and a grappler character. Id give everyone a command grab and fireball.

28

Because yes, there are people who enjoy playing grapplers. But more importantly, they help create interesting and diverse matchups. How does a grappler who specializes in getting that one big throw to do damage up close approach a zoner who specialzies in trapping their opponents from afar? How does a rushdown character deal with a grappler who can punish any mistake up close with easy big damage? These are all questions that lead into interesting matchups. Yes, this can lead to bad matchups, but a game where there are strong archetypes will always have a mix of good and bad matchups for all the characters. As Seth has [argued](Prelude to a Diss (Some preliminary remarks on Balance) before, this sort of meta-balance with unique characters and interesting matchups leads to a more interesting game.