Keits posted notes for all the fixes being made to the game and balance changes for two of the characters. Check it out here: http://divekick.com/forum/index.php?topic=860.0
Matchmaking is getting fixed. Here are the character changes:
Okay, so basically, before, it took the Baz 10 kicks for Thunder and 24 kicks for Kickfactor, 22 for Kickfactor if you had Style gem.
Now, it’s 9 kicks for Thunder, 8 if you have Style gem, and 21 for Kickfactor, 19 if you have Style gem.
So it does 3 things for the Baz.
- Style gem actually matters, now.
- With Style gem, Thunder might now actually be an ability you can work for since it has a lower cost rather than a last-ditch effort to stake out territory or surprise the opponent at the cost of Kickfactor.
- There is basically no reason to ever go for Kickfactor anymore unless you have the Style gem. 21 is not much of a reprieve from 24 in the long run, but 19 is actually significant.
Overall, the Baz has been nerfed pretty hard. The Baz can’t really force any situations with the Thunder other than a fake-out kick to Thunder which is really situational, so the Thunder remains a zoning tool and not a move to really kill with regularly. On the other hand, Kickfactor, the Baz’s main source of kills, is no longer there.
Okay, I played a few games.
The Baz fucking sucks now, and these were poorly thought-out changes.
I get what they wanted. They thought Baz’s Kickfactor was too powerful. So they nerfed it and increased meter gain to make Thunder a more appealing option. But the problem is that Thunder is still a mostly defensive option, so you can’t really use it to get kills except against dumb people who overextend themselves. In fact, now that you also get Kickfactor faster, especially with the Meter gem, Kickfactor is still the more attractive option, because it’s still the only reliable way to get an offensive kill. The only difference now is that the rewards are far less for Kickfactor for the amount of meter you need and now, because you aren’t going to carry it into the next round anyway, you have a longer time to get your one kill with Kickfactor.
So, essentially, the Baz has just gotten a straight nerf. Thunder is still mostly a defensive tool, Mighty Swing is still a shit-tier move, and Kickfactor is still the main way to go. Nothing has changed. No actual “thoughtful play” has been encouraged, the Baz is just straight-up worse.
Honestly, in the current state, I feel like Mighty Swing has to be made more useful (perhaps make it so you don’t hit the ground and go right back into standing when your rope extends too long and instead finish your swing) or the Baz needs the ability to headshot.
Oh, and the kicker: Kickfactor Bazs passing through each other means that the Baz that activated Kickfactor second will always have the advantage.
Quit bellyaching. I hate knee-jerk reactions to patches.
I play Zubaz and he is still good even after the nerf (which is what it is but I think it is justified) I played ~20 matches last night. You are underestimating the power of Shocker; I would say that I got most of my meter kills with it but that’s absolutely not true because KF was so fucking good. Baz’s KF was crazy imbalanced in some match ups, if you got your 3rd kill (which was mad easy to do btw) with the kick that triggered KF against Dive (maybe not, I’m not sure), Kung, Baz (even though I try not to play that bullshit, I’m trying to pick up the Doctor for that match), Kick, Jefailey, and Markman you automatically win the match just by jumping and shooting straight across the map. That was retarded (granted I did it, because wins). Shocker is a defensive move? Baz is a defensive character. I’m a fan of meter build and honestly I think that this is a fine patch. Mighty Swing does suck but it does have its uses, but I’m not really sure how to make it a more effective move unless they make it cancelable from either our aiming animation or from kicking itself.
Hopefully people hear about the patch and I quit getting counter picked :tup:
edit: thanks for posting this btw I noticed this happening last night and I wasn’t sure what was going on 
I’m complaining because it didn’t make give him more options like the patch notes imply, it simply made him overall worse. It was a straight nerf tried to be justified as something to make the Baz more interesting, which either makes the update disingenuous or poorly thought-out, and I’m going with the latter. And the Baz wasn’t even THAT good a character to begin with. That goes to Shoals, Sensei, and S-Kill.
He wasn’t *that *good but when you have a situation where you can take 3 rounds off 1/4 of the cast happen pretty regularly that needs to be fixed and they gave us more meter for the hit that he took. Against characters that can’t out dive Baz all you needed to do was make sure you didn’t get headshotted to keep building meter then just chuck yourself across the screen at them when you had a sliver of meter for KF. Then boom 3 rounds in his pocket, then you could do the same thing and get your next 2. Perfectly OK to take that away.
-----vvvThis stuff should be in the Matchup Threadvvv------
I wouldn’t put Baz above Sensei either. S-Kill and Shoals definitely beat him right now. Though the Shoals fight has gotten more interesting the last couple of days, you are actually way more mobile than her if you just stay as low as possible when she jumps and get to the other side of her. Plus the extra meter for Shocker really helps in that matchup if you can time your moves right.
I would like two of the following three right now for Baz:
- Shocker is slightly faster, maybe by a frame. It would make the S-Kill match-up SO much easier to deal with, and it’s also REALLY annoying when you HEAR the lightning go off but it doesn’t hit. (incidentally, there’s also a weird thing with the lightning where you can hit the other guy AS they are getting a hit on you, which I don’t think should happen).
- Make Mighty Swing not stop when it hits the floor and instead follow through completely.
- Allow Baz to headshot, both with and without Kickfactor.
Any two of these would make the massive nerf to Kickfactor worth it.
Funny thing about this complaining is that, according to insider information, these changes to The Baz have been tested for a while now. It promoted more thoughtful play rather than “go full retard building meter” style.
You’d think we could give the guy who invented the game a bit of leeway since the game he gave on his first try is pretty godlike.
According to “insider information”? So, people from inside the company who wants to make the game look good? Well no fucking shit.
And it DOESN’T promote more thoughtful play. Meter game is STILL the name of the game for Baz. The fact that he gains meter FASTER now is proof of this. The only difference now is that he just gets less reward for it. Literally nothing has changed about his actual gameplan, he just sucks more than he used to now. It’d be like, say, making it so that Akuma does 1/2 damage for a second when an opponent wakes up (i.e. nerfing his vortex) and claiming that “promotes more thoughtful play,” when in fact Akuma is STILL going to be heavily reliant on vortex, it’s just that now Akuma’s vortex is garbage (El Fuerte) tier.
I dunno, it just seems to me like they didn’t really know what to do with the Baz for a while now. When he first showed up, he just had a regular Kickfactor and he clearly sucked. Then he got his amazing Kickfactor, which clearly hadn’t been tested very much and was a band-aid solution. Then they slapped on another band-aid solution that just removes ALL of his meter from one kill. Meanwhile, he still can’t headshot, for some reason, but he still can get headshot back, despite the fact that he’s got the most to lose of any character from a headshot. His Mighty Swing is still garbage and has the stupidest interaction with the ground that makes no logical or practical sense. The Baz is a fucking mess. And it’s a shame because he’s otherwise really fun to play.