I’m looking at Firestorm now. Definitely strikes me as, at a minimum, a jack-of-all trades character, although that fireball he has really is quite spectacular. It’s the same startup and near the same travel speed as Deadshot’s Wrist Cannon, although a little bit more recovery. I don’t think his midscreen presence is quite as good as Deadshot, but he is pretty decent up close with the safe burst always building him meter.
His anti-air is an oft stated weakness, and I’ll need some more offline xp, but in my brief foray, it is his d2 that is not so good, but his standing 1 and standing 3 and burst all work to a degree. Definitely not as simple as, say, BA or Aquaman, but it seems to function. I don’t think he’s super top or anything, but he seems pretty well rounded, especially the unique way he can handle zoning with his super fast fireball and damage reduction special and trait getting him health back (Though I do think in a general sense, the trait is pretty underwhelming)
I agree with your assessment of Firestorm. One thing I think that you might have some difficulty with is that I don’t think his trait is very good. It takes a long time to charge and there are a number of system mechanics that can undermine its duration. That alone IMO separates him from some of the other characters you mention (Deadshot, BA, etc.) who ALL have highly useful traits.
Yeah, I have found that unless I’m landing throws or using fireball a lot, the trait is really only useful once in some matches. Granted, lvl. 3 trait is pretty strong, but it’s very brief. I usually use it mid combo and use the insane hit adv of his molten trap in lvl. 3 to force a very hard to see j3 crossup or not. If I’m just kind of zoning, I’ll just pop it since I’m gaining health back and and super amplified in zoning.
Against hard zoners ala Deadshot and Fate I think lvl. 1 and 2 have their place since, combined with his damage reduction move, you can heavily outdamage them with his really fast fireball and molten trap, but that’s the only thing I’ve found.
Am I wrong in thinking that Firestorm is one of the characters most dicked by how traits get handled during cinematics (clash, transition, etc.)? I’m also curious on your thoughts about how he does vs. Deadshot and Fate as it would seem like he does OK against the latter but that low Rifle would make the former kind of a pain.
Yeah I would say other than Bane, he probably take it hardest since his trait fully goes back to lvl. 1. At least he doesn’t take extra damage and get really slow and do no damage when that happens lol
The nice thing about Firestorm is while, again, they’re not the best versions of tools that other characters have, he still has them. I’m referring to his air dash and an air special; it makes jumping low rifle shots that are then changed to MB easier to avoid since you can airdash and then use his Trailblazer move to zoom past DS and potentially punish, although that’s probably unlikely.
A nice thing about Firestorm vs zoners is that if you use his damage reduction special, the chip is minimized too. Fate’s bolts do something like 1.50 percent chip and DS very similar with his mid shots. Considering he way outdamages both characters, it’s nice that as he moves into a range where his Molten shots become a threat, he takes very little damage (potentially less so with trait up, since he heals during it). If you happen to trade with Molten shot, he can combo out of them too, so sometimes it can be really dangerous to trade with him. Even without that, his normal fireball outdamages both characters’ main projectile, so if he can steal a life lead it can be maintained even with chip.
I don’t think either match is particularly easy, but considering those characters have designs that can absolutely shut out some characters, Firestorm doesn’t have it that bad.
Bane only really get’s boned when two or more cinematics happen in quick succession and he was on lvl. 3 cooldown. I mean when that happens Bane probably loses but otherwise having the counter reset isn’t that bad and most Banes don’t juice up to lvl. 3 unless it’s going to kill.
Yeah, it seems like most situations trading is going to go in favor of Firestorm were either he comes out ahead on damage OR they’ve wasted meter for nothing. It’s actually forcing the trades that’s hard.
I wish there were more decent Dr. Fate and Deadshot players out there. It’s really sad. I’ve had, over the last couple of days, multiple players were it was clear that one of those characters were their main switch to another character against me. Protip: If you’re losing as Dr. Fate or Deadshot against Scarecrow so badly that you feel the need to switch characters then maybe fighting games just aren’t your thing.
Usually they announce a release date at the end of the month, and then it’s very soon after that. Like Raiden was announced end of September and came out the first week of October.
I am aware of their schedule. I am also not super patient. My thoughts on waiting for new, interesting characters (i.e. not Raiden or Sub-Zero): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9EBhaULToU
I figured it was coming sometime down the pipeline, much like MKX. It did take a while, which may hurt sales, but it’s better than going through a disaster release like original MKX.
Hitboxes are pretty literal, I wouldn’t expect too many surprises. The only neat thing I suppose would be seeing that a lot of the jump hurtboxes are pretty massive, which has been my experience.
I would amend that to some or most jump hurtboxes are pretty massive because there are definitely some jump normals that you have to be a select club to be able to anti-air. I’d be most curious to see Scarecrow D3, Black Adam D2 and Batman J2.
Gameplay is TBD for me as they’re still including gear moves in the trailers. Looking forward to him and Enchantress among remaining characters. Really hope that NRS continues to support this game past Eleague.
Warner Bros. It’s kind of frustrating that it really seems like NRS games have about a two year life-cycle because I really liked Injustice 1 and I’ve enjoyed my time with Injustice 2 so far. However, I’m not going to spend time playing a game that no one else is playing and in my area Injustice 2 is already in worse shape player base-wise than Injustice 1 was at a comparable point in its life-cycle.
MKX was supported up until the very end of the I2 pre-release time, so I don’t see why this would be any different. The game is a massive, massive hit, so much so that I’m sure any company would be happy to let them plug away with DLC and tournament support until the next title rolls along.
You also have to factor in that, tournament-player wise, the game isn’t “new,” it’s a legacy title of a niche series. I think it’s a much better game than the first, but I don’t think it would attract new players if they didn’t necessarily like the first one. People are also slaves to their first impressions, and NRS games always get the shit end of the stick when it comes to that.
