TIL, a charging Abigail is not to be underestimated.
Has Poongko officially ditched her?
Doesn’t seem so. He was playing her just yesterday.
Thank god! We need more Kolin players in the pro scene
I don’t think that Abigail is Poongko’s type of character. I was more worried when he was playing Ed.
I’m playing Kolin for a while. She’s arguably one of the most fun chars so far, both to play and watch.
The parry stuff caught my interest immediately ( I use to main Sonya in MKX thanks to her parry). I only hope they make m.p into h.p. and give this bitch some really good alternative costumes.
He reached the top5 with her! Very pleasing result!
That is what makes me most sceptical when everybody say that she is bottom 4. I don’t want to take it from Poongko, he is a good player. But i don’t think that he would be top 5 with Ryu.
And when i watch his matches he doesn’t win of setups or gimmicks. In the end she doesn’t actually have that many tech or it is not discovered. He wins on fundamentals and reads. And if Kolin enables him to do so when how can she be a bad char? Is balance of season 2 so good that bottom 4 is completely viable? Is online totally unrepresentative?
Character popularity might also play a part here. Considering on average there are about 6 times as many Ryu players as there are Kolin, being 5th out of 200 people sounds a tad easier than being 5th out of 1200. I feel that Kolin is considered “bad” mostly due to her mediocre fundamental game, specifically the slow walk, stubby normals, lack of a reliable reversal, no throw loop, no combo off overhead, and while most characters with these drawbacks are made up for with high damage potential or a command grab, she kinda has neither. On the flip side she brings a lot of unique things to the table, such as v-skill counter property, hailstorm set ups, stun freeze mechanic, with her v-trigger offering a strong offensive tool, and of course her signature counter/parry moves which are arguably one of the strongest in the game. Sadly half her tools are so high risk that a bad read will usually cost you the game. The way I see it, professional players love consistency, good solid characters that don’t rely entirely on guesses, and even if they do they have little to no risk. cough Ibuki cough
In higher levels where character and match up knowledge is more widespread, you tend to give up her gimmicky assets and go straight back to the basics, and that’s where the playing field becomes somewhat uneven again for her against most of the cast.
In short she’s fundamentally mediocre relatively speaking, while her greatest strengths are also her greatest weaknesses. That’s why I think she’s labeled as “bad” on the whole.
I agree with everything you write. But still i don’t think that she is bottom tier. Her limitation and riskiness doesn’t allow me to put her in A tier (and i think there is no S tier in season 2) but i think she is bottom B or upper C. Midtier or lower midtier. Definitely not top tier but not lowest tier either.
I in general dislike tier lists actually. They are too subjective. I was totally satisfied with playing Kolin and didn’t have any problems (maby only Guile) but now it bothers me a bit that she is considered weak.
X-Kira is saying her stage is coming
Aren’t tier lists made on matchup results? Because if we build tier lists based on toolsets Zangief would be the worst character in the game.
If we take the matchup approach however, we’ll see that Kolin only has one matchup she loses (Guile), a few she struggles (footsie characters like Karin and Chun) and everything else is a 5:5 in my book. So that means she’s mid tier. I also don’t think she’s fundamentally mediocre, you can pester people with cr.MK, st.HP, b.HK and V-Skill quite well.
Good tier list should take both into account I think. But matchups are indeed more important I think. Though they are way too hard to consider correctly. Most tier lists are I think too subjective.
I’m interested what her stage would be? Did Gill have a stage in 3rd strike?
I’m absolutely trash with this character but I feel like she has a hard time navigating fireballs. Really good Ryu’s with good zoning and of course Guile put me on fucking tilt.
I say Akuma is the shoto exception because of his fireball dissipating early and the fact that his air FB can be easily beaten by her EX Vanity.
For me her really bad MU’s feel like Guile, Laura, Gief.
She goes even with pretty much everyone else and dumps on Sim (not free) and Alex.
She doesn’t have any matchups that feel like she just oppresses people.
I absolutely hate the Guile matchup
I definitely agree that Kolin has no matches in her favor. Course I feel she can fight Juri, Alex, Sim, and Ed with little difficulty
I really hope it’s true that Kolin gets her own stage.
I agree that she has a hard time against fireball users. It would really help her if the vanity step turn was fireball invincible right away.
This! So much this! It’s supposed to be a tool for combating fireballs (which she struggles with), yet you just get hit out of it all the time. I think Vanity Step could use some buffs in general. Even the EX version is merely okay. EX Hard Vanity Step should at least get me out of throws or be invicible for a longer time. Since it has no offensive qualities, the invincibility should be more potent imo.
I agree that Vanity Step may use some buffs.
Buffing invincibility is one way. Full invincibility for EX would be just great. And gap in projectile invincibility for LK.Step > P gives a lot of trouble indeed. Doesn’t seem like a crucial buff even since LK.Step > P cannot be done on reaction, dash punch is punishable and doing nothing brings you farther from the zoner.
Buffing speed is another good way. Now i thinks it’s too reactable. I can do it successfully 1-2 time per match before opponent starts interrupting. And that would be fine if reward for doing it would be bigger. Which brings us to the next point.
The other buff direction is momentum after MK.Step. I didn’t see any practical use of that except linking 3 lights, which is sad. If something could be added to that, i think it may be the most interesting buff.
Also I always wondered why did they do inputs so that you have to commit to a version in the beggining. I think rekka like inputs after backslide would be more useful, so you could adjust according to what your opponent is doing.
Better crossup also would help. HK.Step should be good for crossup but most time i just fly over opponent. He need to barely move to make it whiff. Very annoying.