This thread is for all of us that play low tier characters, and wish that they were better than low tier. Post what you think needs to be done to make them good. Notice I did not say “make them god tier”. No “MAKE THIS MOVE COMPLETELY INVINCIBLE AND DO 75% DAMAGE.”
For starters:
Freeman, in Garou: Mark of the Wolves. What he needs? An anti-air that isn’t crap. And a decent brake move. Basically anyone who can short-jump can rush Freeman down all day and not have to care, since everything he has is either painfully slow or unsafe.
Setsuna, in Last Blade 2: A decent mix-up game. I swear, if he had a good low poke he’d be upper-mid tier at least, because he’s got about three hundred overheads. Also a quicker B slash, but that’s just getting greedy.
Not sure how long this is gonna last, but here goes.
Yoriko, Arcana Heart: Needs quicker pokes, and a better rushdown that doesn’t require pentagram mode. Her supers need to be made usable(they do mediocre damage at best), and she has way too much recovery on like, everything.
Q: Hit-confirm super off of a non-special move. He can do it off of a dashing punch, and that’s fine, but imagine him connecting Critical Combo Attack off of a c.forward kick? They can leave Deadly Double Combination alone as just connectable after dash punch since it does a lot more damage. Oh well I can only dream…
Well … mid tier in Tekken and Soulcalibur is just as useless as low, moreso in Tekken but at any rate::
Christie - stronger mixup game, pokes, SAFE. MID. PUNISHER, Oki & damage. The only thing she has going for her is all those damn lows and mids. Rodeo setups are still solid but have been pretty much picked to pieces by scrub killers.
Setsuka - Mixup. I think she has like 3 lows, one of them actually useful and they are all slow as shit.
But im not one to bitch. Low tier characters make you and others appreciate the time and technique spent learning your person on choice.
Yuki (Last Blade 2) - Just change her jump A into something that hits horizontally or upwards diagonally, and make it so you can’t just jab her out of her SDM even after a knockdown at point blank range. The game is very dependent on air to air and she’s the only one without a quick horizontal air normal.
Setsuna actually does have a great low poke: “:d::snka:” and it’s cancelable, but only on Speed/EX.
Cancelable c. FK/c. MP/b. MP would’ve done wonders for Q.
Up Ibuki’s stamina to at least Yang’s level.
Up Twelve’s stamina to normal shoto levels and give him controllable back strong like Necro.
Give Sean a usable DP, and have it so his hurricane kick is safe on hit at least. Maybe make it so his EX tackle can be combo’d into, but will not grab blocking opponents.
It can be done, it’s whether or not people are willing to take the time to do it. The whole “can it be done?” thing is meaningless, especially with your examples. Giving a character new moves could solve a lot of things, but how about just redefining already existing moves by tweaking start-up, recovery, hit frames and how much stun/damage they do. You could technically make any move good under those pretenses.
Armor King in T5DR: Needs better frames on just about all of his moves, it sucks to like/use a character that has NO frame advantage. Also, needs more damage off GS and iSW (it’s not like his juggles are awesome or anything, so this won’t break him or anything). I can deal with the lack of strings he has (that doesn’t bother me), but he needs to have moves that he can use and not get launched from if blocked.
Space yourself just outside the opponent’s best poke, and stick out far A’s…it should hit people out of their jumps as they are going up. Obviously this won’t work well with jumps that are about to come down, you stick these out to stop jumpins just as they start.
As for what character I think can be improved…Seth in kof2k2 is far too butchered compared to his kof2000 version. His sweep is not cancellable, his crouch C is much better in kof2000, his f+A isn’t cancellable and his counters in kof2000 are fewer, yet apply to more situations than in 2k2. Any of these changes (I’d prefer the changes to his normals though) would make him a lot better.
I’m a theorist, not a top level gamer, but… lately, I’ve been thinking that the most important thing about chars like these is to make their weaknesses seem like they don’t exist
ex. based on that first thing I saw (I don’t play the game btw). if a char doesn’t have good anti-air, use some shit that stops your opponent from even reaching the air. if you can’t do that, then ignore that completely… dwelling on it is a waste of time. instead, you could learn something like… how to defend against everything aerial properly.
anyone else buy into this, or would you say that the characters would still be weak even with gameplay tweaks? it’s worked for me, but then again I don’t play everyone
You make a very good point. Really, that’s what half of being good is, making up for a character’s weaknesses. I suppose I was kind of misleading with my description of the thread, I was just wondering how many people have ever had “Damn, I wish ______ had ______,” moments.