Barrogh
Meta saltmine
Hello there.
Without much further ado I would like to present several changes to Displacer in order to partially enable defensive playstyle of his former iteration. I will try to avoid touching his offensive capabilities (except for one case that I feel Raiden needs) and pressure and focus on his signature move and space control a bit more. That means some general changes, so feel free to point out if you have issues with those (with other variations in mind).
General changes
More important ones
0)*Insert hitbox fixes here*
This is about random whiffs that still sometimes happen. Just putting it here for the sake of completeness.
1) Changes to normals:
- Slightly increased range on 3 and f2 normals;
- Make 3 mid, remove block advantage on 3, possibly bump its speed to 11f from 12f.
This is straightforward. These normals are undesirable up close but also lack space coverage for their speed that could make them more useful outside of "up close" situations - with changing status of 3 from strictly punishing normal to neutral game tool. This change means that they have their niche (besides 3 punishing "big" unsafes for Displacer and MoS) and help with neutral game somewhat.
IMO this shoudln't break TG considering that his f22+4 is very different and small range fix on mids is what he probably needs anyway.
Less important, or questionable (discuss please!)
1) Rising Thunder (or whatever that db3 move is called) now has following qualities:
- Lowers Raiden's hitbox during startup a bit more;
- Has slightly better spatial priority. I suggest removing vulnerable hitbox from front part his hand to make sure it won't be stuffed by most air normals so easily;
This move needs a purpose. For an anti-air move it's relatively slow, it is also risky, it gets stuffed by like everything. I propose to leave its speed in place to avoid homogenization of tools and other issues, but make this move something to respect. This should be enough to make it cover some situations that NJP doesn't, but remember it is also less safe and much less potentially damaging. I think it's fair trade for its uses as AA that can sometimes "option select" against high moves if you read jump-in incorrectly: it is still punishable/stuffed by everything else.
2) Replace b2 with b22 string with following properties:
- b2 retains 13f startup, is around +10 on hit, 0 or -1 on block, deals 3% on hit and 0.25% on block;
- b22 is basically current b2 except recovery animation is cut by 30-40 frames to make it safer to whiff in neutral or against delayed wakeup, more in line with other normals in MKX. It is still more than -20 on block!
Despite Raiden's overhead being a source of very heated debate, this change doesn't do much on its own. This will just give opponent something to worry about and be more on point with delayed wakeup and backdash punishes against overhead options. As you can probably notice, even damage is unchanged. This is the only change affecting Raiden's straightforward offence and pressure that I want to see.
3) Superman (bf3) has 9f startup (down from 11f).
Yes, superman is already nice tool even outside combo ender situations. While I propose this change mostly to make it work a bit better with Displacer-specific changes I will outline further, I believe that this won't break anything for other variations, even if it will allow to punish a few things that could otherwise be conditionally safe.
I also feel that Raiden's other tools may require a look at them (like ex-lightning that is somewhat useless without TG's ability to stop it and regular VB), but I'd rather be careful about this stuff even if change could mean moves are usable.
Displacer-specific changes
Changes that I feel are required
These changes will include changing of inputs. While I understand that this is generally undesirable, it will be absolutely necessary this time around due to frame data concerns I will point out in this passage.
1) Regular close teleport (du) is now strike invulnerable during startup after 5th frame. No throw invulnerability.
This will make teleport better avoidance move without making it faster and more powerful in other situations. Please notice that it won't be better counter to up-close non-low-profiling moves than your f1 normal. Generally though, if you can avoid it with teleport, you can also stuff it with f1 for full combo. This buff is for those situations when it is not the case, but it doesn't guarantee anything afterwards, obviously.
2) Phase "teleport" (without relocating) now:
- requires db4 input (I will explain later);
- has full strike invulnerability throughout startup (same, throws still work);
- recovery can be entirely cancelled into superman for 1 bar of stamina.
Phase and its cancel is now your parry and fakeout move. Risky, may not be that useful in some situations. It probably won't get you out of situations where you need to absorb first hit of the string. It may work much better with new cancel (cuting 10f of recovery), but it is also very unsafe for obvious reasons, frame data of blocked superman and breakers requiring 2 bars of stamina. It is, however, useful against chains with gaps and sometimes it means botching opponent's special cancel.
I feel that this move should not be too powerful, but just in case I'll leave these additional suggestions:
- Phase itself costing a bar of stamina instead of only if you superman cancel - retain more risk of using it without cancelling;
- Phase has faster recovery (cutting about 4-5 frames to a total of 14-15), but making it impossible to cancel normals into it - making it less of a bill, but not allowing it to become better pressure tool. Although if previous change is implemented, then maybe it's not that of a big deal to have some extra frames at the cost of a stamina bar. Gotta crunch numbers, I guess.
And finally, the reason for input change: this move is immediately strike invulnerable unlike regular crossup teleport, that means if we keep this tied to a button press after du, all invulnerability between inputting "u" and additional button is lost (since the game doesn't know if we are going to just phase and not crossup yet, it cannot afford assuming you are making fully invulnerable move - we don't have rollbacks, do we?).
If you have better ideas about new input, shoot.
3) Just to avoid confusion: far teleports will stay the way they are, no extra frame data bump or invulnerability.
The only change I feel should be implemented is changing inputs. If we are keeping those tied to an additional directional input after du, we will only have like 5 frames to change directional inputs before the game will have to trigger invulnerability for crossup close teleport. I feel there's no point in keeping this gap so small even if it's not exactly way too tight. Although I'm afraid that I have no good idea how to map them. Perhaps moving rising superman to df1 while dedicating db3 and df3 to far teleports should do a trick, but I don't like the fact that you need to remap unrelated move. bf4 and fb4 are also a bit problematic because bf4 will cause problems with "walk back, then do f4 normal" option.
Do you have any ideas, guys?
Changes that I feel are controversial or not exactly necessary
1) I feel that one of the reason Raiden's spatial game is lacking is his considerable backdash recovery. Perhaps if we are going to play Displacer as more defensive character, better backdash can be useful. Cutting some frames can do the trick, and adding visual effect that looks remotely like teleport can both facilitate animation tweaking and add some confusion factor.
2) Now, this one is not even a change and can be safely ignored, but I always felt that inputs shouldn't be one bit more complicated than it is necessary for game to tell one from another. In this regard I always felt confused about the reason of including additional buttons into f22+4 and f12b2 strings. Like, couldn't it be f22 and f122 instead? Bonus points for f24 not coming out in some rare cases when it's not supposed to.
But like I said, this is not exactly deal maker in any sense, rather it is personal preference.
3) Not a suggestion, but rather a request for discussion: how do you feel about superman[MB]? Is it too costly for what it does and does Displacer really benefits from this option? It definitely may be a bit more useful with proposed change to Phase and it looks dope, but since Displacer isn't building meter at TG rate, does this really do much for him?
So, these are ideas so far. I suppose they are nothing big as far as I can tell, but I feel that we are definitely not there yet to ask for 1f meterless teleport, free teleport combos, teleport pressure and whatnot.
So, please, discuss!
Without much further ado I would like to present several changes to Displacer in order to partially enable defensive playstyle of his former iteration. I will try to avoid touching his offensive capabilities (except for one case that I feel Raiden needs) and pressure and focus on his signature move and space control a bit more. That means some general changes, so feel free to point out if you have issues with those (with other variations in mind).
General changes
More important ones
0)*Insert hitbox fixes here*
This is about random whiffs that still sometimes happen. Just putting it here for the sake of completeness.
1) Changes to normals:
- Slightly increased range on 3 and f2 normals;
- Make 3 mid, remove block advantage on 3, possibly bump its speed to 11f from 12f.
This is straightforward. These normals are undesirable up close but also lack space coverage for their speed that could make them more useful outside of "up close" situations - with changing status of 3 from strictly punishing normal to neutral game tool. This change means that they have their niche (besides 3 punishing "big" unsafes for Displacer and MoS) and help with neutral game somewhat.
IMO this shoudln't break TG considering that his f22+4 is very different and small range fix on mids is what he probably needs anyway.
Less important, or questionable (discuss please!)
1) Rising Thunder (or whatever that db3 move is called) now has following qualities:
- Lowers Raiden's hitbox during startup a bit more;
- Has slightly better spatial priority. I suggest removing vulnerable hitbox from front part his hand to make sure it won't be stuffed by most air normals so easily;
This move needs a purpose. For an anti-air move it's relatively slow, it is also risky, it gets stuffed by like everything. I propose to leave its speed in place to avoid homogenization of tools and other issues, but make this move something to respect. This should be enough to make it cover some situations that NJP doesn't, but remember it is also less safe and much less potentially damaging. I think it's fair trade for its uses as AA that can sometimes "option select" against high moves if you read jump-in incorrectly: it is still punishable/stuffed by everything else.
2) Replace b2 with b22 string with following properties:
- b2 retains 13f startup, is around +10 on hit, 0 or -1 on block, deals 3% on hit and 0.25% on block;
- b22 is basically current b2 except recovery animation is cut by 30-40 frames to make it safer to whiff in neutral or against delayed wakeup, more in line with other normals in MKX. It is still more than -20 on block!
Despite Raiden's overhead being a source of very heated debate, this change doesn't do much on its own. This will just give opponent something to worry about and be more on point with delayed wakeup and backdash punishes against overhead options. As you can probably notice, even damage is unchanged. This is the only change affecting Raiden's straightforward offence and pressure that I want to see.
3) Superman (bf3) has 9f startup (down from 11f).
Yes, superman is already nice tool even outside combo ender situations. While I propose this change mostly to make it work a bit better with Displacer-specific changes I will outline further, I believe that this won't break anything for other variations, even if it will allow to punish a few things that could otherwise be conditionally safe.
I also feel that Raiden's other tools may require a look at them (like ex-lightning that is somewhat useless without TG's ability to stop it and regular VB), but I'd rather be careful about this stuff even if change could mean moves are usable.
Displacer-specific changes
Changes that I feel are required
These changes will include changing of inputs. While I understand that this is generally undesirable, it will be absolutely necessary this time around due to frame data concerns I will point out in this passage.
1) Regular close teleport (du) is now strike invulnerable during startup after 5th frame. No throw invulnerability.
This will make teleport better avoidance move without making it faster and more powerful in other situations. Please notice that it won't be better counter to up-close non-low-profiling moves than your f1 normal. Generally though, if you can avoid it with teleport, you can also stuff it with f1 for full combo. This buff is for those situations when it is not the case, but it doesn't guarantee anything afterwards, obviously.
2) Phase "teleport" (without relocating) now:
- requires db4 input (I will explain later);
- has full strike invulnerability throughout startup (same, throws still work);
- recovery can be entirely cancelled into superman for 1 bar of stamina.
Phase and its cancel is now your parry and fakeout move. Risky, may not be that useful in some situations. It probably won't get you out of situations where you need to absorb first hit of the string. It may work much better with new cancel (cuting 10f of recovery), but it is also very unsafe for obvious reasons, frame data of blocked superman and breakers requiring 2 bars of stamina. It is, however, useful against chains with gaps and sometimes it means botching opponent's special cancel.
I feel that this move should not be too powerful, but just in case I'll leave these additional suggestions:
- Phase itself costing a bar of stamina instead of only if you superman cancel - retain more risk of using it without cancelling;
- Phase has faster recovery (cutting about 4-5 frames to a total of 14-15), but making it impossible to cancel normals into it - making it less of a bill, but not allowing it to become better pressure tool. Although if previous change is implemented, then maybe it's not that of a big deal to have some extra frames at the cost of a stamina bar. Gotta crunch numbers, I guess.
And finally, the reason for input change: this move is immediately strike invulnerable unlike regular crossup teleport, that means if we keep this tied to a button press after du, all invulnerability between inputting "u" and additional button is lost (since the game doesn't know if we are going to just phase and not crossup yet, it cannot afford assuming you are making fully invulnerable move - we don't have rollbacks, do we?).
If you have better ideas about new input, shoot.
3) Just to avoid confusion: far teleports will stay the way they are, no extra frame data bump or invulnerability.
The only change I feel should be implemented is changing inputs. If we are keeping those tied to an additional directional input after du, we will only have like 5 frames to change directional inputs before the game will have to trigger invulnerability for crossup close teleport. I feel there's no point in keeping this gap so small even if it's not exactly way too tight. Although I'm afraid that I have no good idea how to map them. Perhaps moving rising superman to df1 while dedicating db3 and df3 to far teleports should do a trick, but I don't like the fact that you need to remap unrelated move. bf4 and fb4 are also a bit problematic because bf4 will cause problems with "walk back, then do f4 normal" option.
Do you have any ideas, guys?
Changes that I feel are controversial or not exactly necessary
1) I feel that one of the reason Raiden's spatial game is lacking is his considerable backdash recovery. Perhaps if we are going to play Displacer as more defensive character, better backdash can be useful. Cutting some frames can do the trick, and adding visual effect that looks remotely like teleport can both facilitate animation tweaking and add some confusion factor.
2) Now, this one is not even a change and can be safely ignored, but I always felt that inputs shouldn't be one bit more complicated than it is necessary for game to tell one from another. In this regard I always felt confused about the reason of including additional buttons into f22+4 and f12b2 strings. Like, couldn't it be f22 and f122 instead? Bonus points for f24 not coming out in some rare cases when it's not supposed to.
But like I said, this is not exactly deal maker in any sense, rather it is personal preference.
3) Not a suggestion, but rather a request for discussion: how do you feel about superman[MB]? Is it too costly for what it does and does Displacer really benefits from this option? It definitely may be a bit more useful with proposed change to Phase and it looks dope, but since Displacer isn't building meter at TG rate, does this really do much for him?
So, these are ideas so far. I suppose they are nothing big as far as I can tell, but I feel that we are definitely not there yet to ask for 1f meterless teleport, free teleport combos, teleport pressure and whatnot.
So, please, discuss!
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