^ This
I leave Karin after Zeku release, I already knew whatever I was going to get were buffs 
People who were used to characters able to abusing the meta just got what they asked for, Iām sorry. Rashid got killed and Abigail is human again, but thinking Capcom would have allowed these characters to remain as it is was just an illusion. As I said before, even the current tops will fall harder and then all the complaints will starts again.
Nerfs shmurfs.
Cāmonā¦as a Rashid player, I knew his ass would be nerf hard eventually lol. Just look what the Devs did to S1 Nashā¦and he wasnāt even nearly as good as S2-3 Rashid. Itās been a good run for him. Hopefully John, Moke and Oil King will not drop him and he will fall to high-mid or mid tier at least. I just canāt see him being low tier when characters like Ed and Alex suck more than him.
Go check BigBird Twitter account and give him a virtual hug. The rebalance was good for him with Rashid on top, thatās it. His ability to put opponents into the corner itās still there, heās going to work harder to achieve this now. I understand his feelings about the time involved in improving his character, but Rashid getting nerfed was expected. The only way to donāt be never disappointed about nerfs is playing Akuma.
Things
Iām wondering what GunFight is going to do? He WAS talking about possibly switching to Rashid in his interview and then BAM. April Foolās patch hits and the exact character he was planning on switching to finally got witch hunted into honesty and people are hyping up Alex as potentially new top 3 grappler.
If thereās anything about the eSports stuff, it proves that tiers are real. I love looking at the comments for Vesperās recent tier video and seeing the peanut gallery comment with āI donāt think you need tiers, I just saw somebody do some work with Chun Liā. Wellā¦all you have to do is look at Final Round and NCR top 8 and that already proves that tiers are real. Tiers just become even more real when well being/QoL is dependent on them. Hell, thatās not enough proof look at DBFZ Final Round/NCR top 8. That is the definition of tiers and they donāt have a pot of gold at the end of every event yet.
I thought Rashid would be one of the relatively safe characters as he has a style thatās hard to destroy without changing heavily how he plays. I havenāt read all his patch notes or even know enough about him to know how itāll ultimately effect him, but if EX whirlwind doesnāt always force you into like one or 2 risky ass things to escape it, thatās nice.
Characters like Cammy and Akuma will always stay strong because they just fit how the game works or are good at manipulating other characters in the game. Like if you change Cammys ability to safely dive on pokes and throw off anti airs, then you lose a lot of what makes Cammy interesting at all and if you nerf her buttons then you leave her as a character without much way to pressure, punish people for whiffs or open people up from the neutral. Akuma just has too low health and stun to not have basically the best CCās in the game and have a V Trigger that combined with his other tools allows him to be the most versatile in the game.
Guile is a paradox because heās a zoner in a game thatās been close range character heavy for a while. You would think that he would just have trouble vs all of the crazy rush and shenanigans but ever since Season 1 heās been able to assert himself despite all of the craziness and prove that SFV isnāt quite as zany or limited in neutral as people make it out to be. Heās been building the wall since he launched and his ability to lock up the screen in ways most of the cast canāt is part of why heāll always stay dominant. Pretty much every character has to play to his game and thereās only a couple characters like Menat that force him out of his element.
Abigail will most likely still be pretty strong. There will be people that will drop him because his set play got nerfed, but he is now balanced more correctly where heās a character that will dump a world of damage into you if he hits you, he just canāt do that, get free oki and then youāre dead (yet).
CC nerf is barely noticeable. The scaling only got docked down 20 percent, so next hit still does 80 percent of original damage. Other than super long ass Abigail combos youāll barely notice. Part of why I think Abigail will live.
Sakura getting good is good. Always felt she was solid and just mainly needed buffs to her V Triggers to make them be more of a threat. That pretty much happened. Chun Liās V Skill changes I think will buff her up in ways that people will see soon. C.HP V Skill is a game changer in her throw whiff and close range whiff punish game.
People care about Alex again. He can win CEO.
Playing Chun in casuals and running into like 3 Guiles was hilarious. If you get EX flash kicked you want to turn into Ibuki like immediately. Luckily Chunās slide low profiles V Skill a lot better than Ibukiās, but overall Ibuki just has way more ways to try to get back in again than Chunās honest ass. Like just about everything else is in place for MOV to stick with Chun for a while and then they give Guile EX flash kick that knocks you back into 2009 (and Menat will still suck).
One thing I do like about going back to Chun is itās fun having long buttons where you can make the other good button characters respect you again. Itās nice not having to just look to counter poke/whiff punish Rogās buttons all day or get in trouble. Can just spam long as 3 frame c.LK if he starts to get close and slam s.HP at him while sliding under Rog dash shit. Having a fireball making him think before throwing out a bunch of buttons is nice too. The reward for Ibuki is you get to setplay them down once you land a hit, but the neutral is much more boring and much harder to assert yourself in than with Chun.
-Rashid getting nerfed probably buffed Ibuki. Ninja.
Holy fuck nerfing Abigailās cr lk is soooooo stupid. Why is this non special cancellable now? Was that truly game breaking?
Clearly, it was done to equalize it Giefās cr lk which also became non special cancellable since S3.
SFV canāt have big bodies linking cr lk into stuff, it seems.
Gunfight wasnāt completely set on switching anyway. I couldnāt really make time to watch his stream this morning, but I get the impression heās likely to stick with Alex mostly for the time being while still working on leveling up an alt or two. He actually plays several characters quite well.
https://twitter.com/Chris_Tatarian/status/980893418623614977
[spoiler]Gotta throw some boomsā¦gotta throw some orbsā¦gotta throw some red fireballs. Good luck.[/spoiler]
When you go beyond whining.
Why is Crytarian still playing this game? He obviously doesnāt like it and he doesnāt compete at a level where he could live from prize money anyway* so Iād say just drop it. There are plenty of other fighting games available or coming out this year.
*which also means he could just stop taking it seriously. Which is what I did at some point during S2 in between two Rog/Laura V-Trigger comebacks. Kinda works. Laugh at the bullshit, have fun with the rest. Menat still triggers me though.
Chris T taking that dbz to heart.
You thought I knew how to be a sulky whiny baby?
This is to goā¦ EVEN FURTHER BEYOND
Okay thatās four times in the last two days where I landed a grounded Enhanced Snatcher and some shit happened that messed up my range, which caused a combo whiff and me getting punished. What the hell did they do to it?
Itās always been weird.
Iāve had people backdash out of it.
Not at the tip where they could be out of range, but right in the middle.
One might even call Ed āinconsistentā 
TBF grapplers have historically had weaker low games than other characters. Itās supposed to be the balance for being able to force people into untechable grabs. Your untechable grab is your āgrappler lowā and it doesnāt really make sense balance wise to give grapplers walk up low confirms to force you to sit on the ground to make their grabs even more dangerous than they already are.
Like in 3S Hugo players have to resort to shit like c.LK, EX clothesline just to have a low string. Itās unsafe as hell on block but they go for it any ways just to get an attempt at a low game. Which makes sense because he already has a c.MK that is one of the longest in the game which already forces the opponent to check their low. In an honest way though where they arenāt worried about taking full shoto/Cammy style bnbs and getting their stun raised into dangerous territory.
Abigail just became too much having a grab that gives real oki and also 2 of the longest lows in the game that lead to Abi punch and oki into that grab that gives oki and so on. Which resorted to people having to jump in the air to try and slow down his button pressing on the ground. You have to jump against Abi to check his normals as the long total frames on them is one of the only weaknesses of them. It was just super dangerous with him having a slow but really long comfirmable c.MK into combo and having a c.LK that outranged most of the cast into bnb. Which then if he got close you have to hold your down back, which sets you up for the j.HK that you have to block high which sets you up for move in command grab.
Now he canāt put you into a situations in neutral where youāre almost guaranteed to get hit, but can still make it dangerous if he gets in. Does it pretty much put him out of ever winning any real set of CPTās even though he barely won anything? Probably, but as far as balance around his archetype is concerned it made sense.
I donāt mean people getting out of the Snatcher itself. I mean Iāll land it just fine, but something happens on the way after I land the punch that knocks me out of range for a proper followup. On hit, Iāve had c.MP miss a couple of times already and Iāve gotten blown up for it. On block I typically go for the usual s.MP, c.HP followup and when it lands sometimes c.HP is whiffing which leads to me getting blown up.
The worst part is, I canāt recreate these issues in training mode.
Make CC scale more, but give Urien his old shit back so in the end it doesnāt really matter.
CC scaling affects the chars who donāt get much in the first place even more.
Capcom is like a DJ who just keeps turning knobs and moving sliders to make it look like they know whatās going on.
Yet we keep on bobbing our heads to this shit.
Das weird, never happened to me.
Good to know though, gonna keep my eye out to see what causes it.
Okay so after playing Abigail some more heās actually fine. His buffed VT2 helps my style a lot too since I much prefer it over VT1. Some of the nerfs to other characters really helped him too, like itās not nearly as challenging to get close to Guile now for example.
I legitimately donāt know whoās in charge of the patches anymore.
It just doesnt make sense.
AE comes out and Abigail has everything a grappler has ever dreamed of.
3 months later: āoh shit we fucked up, letās nerf Abiās light-confirm game by removing cancels from cr.lk for good measureā
What are you doing Capcom? Whatās the game plan? Cuz now itās Cammy, Akuma, and Guile at the top.
Rashid got nerfed to crap because apparently you didnāt like him no more either.
Give us a clue as to what youāre chasing after. Because right now itās just the flavor of the month. And I mean that in a literal way because AE dropped 3 months ago and shitās already been overhauled completely for some characters.
Couldnāt you have nerfed Rashid before AE? You all knew he was amazing and got away with murder on the regular. Please get your shit sorted pronto.
Much love,
An Ed main.