honestly I don’t see them not buffing Hsien Ko, not to be a naysayer but I don’t really see any hidden potential in her as a character that just hasn’t been discovered. If this was a slower pace game like street fighter or something then she would make since as a character (great normals slow speed etc) but not in marvel 3 where people can tri jump and be in your face in seconds and open you up. And even when you do land a hit the payoff is very small damage wise which isn’t fair. They could have at least given her some more health or something and made her slow and more tank like or something lol. It’s very obvious that she needs some help because she is the only character in the game that is clearly an amazing assist but bad character. Doom,Sent,Akuma,Ammy etc they ALL have something they can do while on point and it’s not so easy to lame them out.
more mobility maybe a health boost and more damage and I think she would be good, also that cancellable pendulum would be great.
A 4th Vampire game being in the works by the time there’s a new Guilty Gear sounds like a pretty good possibility, and I’d hope they’d bring back what she was known for in VS. Not that her MvC3 self has to translate to that hypothetical game, but it couldn’t hurt to start now. I see no reason to increase her health or up her base dmg that much, but help out her hitstun deterioration, combo and mixup options along with improved mobility would go a long long way.
Wouldn’t mind seeing Ten Rai Ha improved overall though, it’s pretty much her best use of meter in VS and a pretty low dmging not so spectacular hyper in MvC, upping the dmg and the hitbox of the ground bounce would be pretty nice.
I’m not to fond of the “she’s a great assist character” argument. I find Gustav fire better overall with no meter cost to use. especially since it’s harder to punish+Tron Health make it much safer. Not that I’ll deny it’s a great assist, but very little reason to pick it over some others.
imho I think only her damage output/capabilities needs to be altered;
we know with meter and assist she can get ‘decent’ damage which I think is fine, however
her armor is more important to her team wise than damage out put so instead of doing a 500k-600k combo with the use of meter
why not give her armor and tag her out to a char who can deal 800k-900k with less meter, less difficulty, with some chars less situational, and have literally an unstoppable assist to boot.
So, it’s unfortunately a no brainer for competitive players who aren’t using her because they fancy the character.
As, much as I would love the pendulum cancel I can’t see it coming, you could theoretically have unstoppable 50/50s mixups whenever in armor just pendulum because it can’t be stopped and even if they decide to just block you could cancel it right on top of them and it either crosses them up or not. The only way to stop it would be to command grab, unless I’m mistaken.
I know other characters have even better than that but those chars were made to be like that, I don’t think h-ko was made to be easily slotted on every team, or easily accessible like those other characters.
But the problem is, like b1k53 said, there’s really no reason for Ko to be like that when you have characters like Tron who provide more easily-used assists and can be solid point characters. As for the issue of not being able to fit on any team, just look at She-Hulk. I don’t think she’s flexible like Zero or Dante, but she can be used very effectively on the right teams (I.e., Combofiend, to use an extreme example). So really, Capcom needs to realize that HK needs some stuff.
But you bring up a good point on the cancellable Pendulum.
I thought Pendulum couldn’t be pushblocked, but I’m probably wrong.
Anyway, it probably wouldn’t be that overbearing. Sure, you’d get a few people whining about how they can’t predict Pendulum mixups, but hey, it’s not as annoying as
Oh, I think I’m going to add one more thing I forgot.
Might be just me, but Chireitou is useless against two characters if you catch the point and assist character in a combo. The blades only picks up one of the two, so either the assist character escapes and lives, or the point character escapes and punishes you. Fixing this would make Hsien-Ko more deadly at making come backs, since Tenraiha XFC Chireitou deals more damage than Tenraiha XFC Tenraiha, unless you’re planning to add a Chireitou after the 2nd Tenraiha.
I just thought of another thing that would significantly boost Hsien-Ko’s game, possibly to the point of being broken, but it would also expand her usefulness significantly.
Give Gongs the same hard knockdown effect that her flower pot and star projectiles have on airborn opponents.
When the flower pot and star collide with an airborn opponent, they score a hard knockdown that also allows almost any follow up attack to OTG. This would allow Hsien-Ko to not only significantly improve her zoning game - no more simply air recovering forward hoping to get beyond the gong wall - but it would also give her an option for extending her combos.
oh sorry, I wasn’t trying to imply that she can’t fit on teams because I think she can. however what she provides, someone else can provide it, maybe not as good but there other pros outweighs that difference so they’ll opt for the other char(s).
pendulum can’t be advanced guard effectively, test it, even after you cross up they still can’t push you away,
and hypothetically I think the cancel would stop advanced guard
I barely use chireitou because I always mess up my timing but it’s good to know it doesn’t carry 2 chars
Also, I don’t like this either but hsien-ko is an assist char that unfortunately has to be her classification if any…
what’s the alternative ?
or a better question
is there another reason to pick her?
if someone seriously asked you this what would you think of;
all that comes to mind is runaway with life lead and low time but thats pretty situational and some times tricky
I played with her a bit at the game shop, which had MvC3 up on display.
I honestly feel like she’s supposed to be a zoning character. She has amazing range on her normals and interesting (fast!) projectiles both offensive and defensive. I was really impressed by the deceptive range on her normals. Her biggest issues are mobility and damage. She has trouble keeping opponents out or running away due to low speed. If they get in, she pretty much needs to fight her way out. Most of my damage was coming from irritating an opponent enough to make them rush in, then tagging them with one of her high-priority normals. If she only had a bit more punishing power, she could really be a strong defensive character.
Cancelable Pendulum with S.
Faster Air Dash
Faster Dash
Instant recovery on Tenreiha, first hit overhead, balls hit low. Lower Damage. (this is supposed to be a setup super)
Less recovery on Cheritou (you’re supposed to be able to follow this)
Chainable/Cancelable F+B.
tenreiha balls hitting low would be too cheap. She’d be able to create her own high/low mixup unblockable out of that by hitting the opponent with an overhead the moment the balls come down, way too easily.
Make the balls do a lot more chip damage and damage in general, I say.
How about making Tenraiha > Cheireitou a bit easier as well and giving her more meter somehow.
I think the main problem is Hsien-Ko isn’t good at anything besides her Dark Force assist and being quirky. If you think about it every character is good at something even if that something is being an “all rounder”, which Hsien-Ko isn’t good at either. She needs something to be good at, it’s like every character had some sort of focus except for her.
I dunno, maybe I’m just rambling but that’s the impression I get.
Hmm I think it would be an interesting idea for the Tenraiha balls to stay on screen longer, and still continue to hit the opponent, something like Dormammu’s flame carpet (maybe 4-6 seconds, too long would make it broken), not only would it make up for the lack of damage but change Hsien Ko’s keep away/rush down mechanics, she would have the option run away and effectively have a safe area around her for a few seconds or rush down with the spike balls since the spike balls would lock down the opponent. I think something as simple as this would make her a lot better, just imagine if Dormammu didn’t have flame carpet, he would be much easier to rush down. Since Dormammu is one of the few characters actually good at keep away in a game that is very rushdown heavy I feel like having a similar mechanic for Hsien Ko would be very beneficial and make up for her low damage output. However the probability of Capcom changing the mechanics for the spike balls is very unlikely, for me its just wishful thinking.
As Sugami said, she really isn’t exceptional at anything as of now unless Seth reveals something innovative about her that nobody has discovered in the past few months. The only reason I play her is because I love her character design
No, I get that impression too. It’s just odd that some characters seem to have everything (glares at Wesker and Taskmaster), while others don’t have much or anything. She doesn’t really bring anything to a team other than the assist. I hate to keep harping on Vampire Savior, but there, she had advantages in being a glass cannon. Take away her offense and you’re left with a broken gimmick (but not in the sense of Phoenix). Once again, I hope Serh includes her in his character expose to show us all if we’re missing something with her, because low damage + low speed + low health isn’t a good combination on anyone not named Dhalsim, and especially not in a vs. game.
Anyway, I’ve done my part, and I’m just repeating myself at this point, so I’ll let this thread grow for a little while unless there’s something that catches my attention. Which, actually, is pretty likely.
And move mechanics can change between versions, if SMvC3 truly is on the horizon.
It was in an interview about a week ago. He said that there was still a lot the community hasn’t discovered and that he was going to demo Doom and some other (unnamed) characters.
I have a feeling Viper and Jill are among them, just because they have a lot of unused potential, but my seemingly-ungrantable wish is for Seth to show us some Ko stuff that we haven’t found yet, along with some hints toward what the hell we’re supposed to do with her beyond assist spam.
But that’s all just my conjecture. I don’t think he said when he was going to do it, but I imagine it’d be at E3, because that’s probably where they’ll focus on SF3 and SFxT stuff too.
