Eddy Wang
Skarlet scientist
A lot of people is been bitching about how scorpion has good specials, good damage and all, but there is some things Scorpion players are not talking but are aware of what is, his current problems.
So because i start to get messages on "Your character is good, retarded, you should't be adressed anything cos it will make him broken and all yada yada yada" i will tell you right here to shut up, just because my character currently feels good doesn't mean that he doesn't have issues, in fact he has, and will become much more evident as the game passes.
First of, B2 scales way too much damage
I would completely understand the amount of active frames that move has in Ninjutsu and range kind of compensating for the damage Scaling, but that move is already very punishable on block, and is 16 frames startup, which in turn makes Ninjutsu kind of useless to have moves that are extremely hard to use, but when you get a right situation to use it, you get basically no damage from any combo you might start when B2 is your starter.
Sometimes we want to increase the height of the punished character for a better combo conversion, but the damage protection makes it scaling even harder, B2 in Ninjutsu shouldn't scale that hard, that variaton doesn't have special moves in addition to compensate for Scorpion Risks, he gains absolutely nothing when he get to land a B2 compared to other variations.
We've came to the conclusion that AAing with Jump In 3 is 100x better than using B2 because it won't scale and you will get your damage for the least, its much faster, and will hit the opponent much earlier than B2, if JI3 can be used in all variations, then why is the point of having Ninjutsu?
Flame fist (B2) in other variations doesn't add anything special aside from being safer.
There is like a lot of factors against the usability of this move, which by the state of what is now, it makes it useless, when compared with the other tools he gains on variations he has flame fist, just to have an idea:
It scales damage
deals less damage
is hard to convert from (Height restrition and recovery doesn't help)
not worth combing from it
only 2 active frames
very short range
very long startup
Very Long recovery frames
I'm still to find a good reason to use flame fist in competitive play, i have none so far, anything B2 should be doing F3 does it better, F3 can:
Deals more damage
Cover about the same distance
Is special cancelable
Hit confirmable
Easy to combo from it
More active frames
Much faster startup
Flame fist is so bad that using as AA you risk to trade against the character jumping, and even if you get one, The damage he gets from landing such risky attack isn't rewarding, its not even worth spending a bar of meter if you land one, you will spend your bar at cost of having your damage scaled and the factor of dropping a teleport convertion off it will be there every time unless B2 connects against someone airbone.
And Again, why scorpion has B2 anyways? The move is bad on Hit, is bad on block, why is that on the command list?
And this are the problems of B2, now lets see another thing that hasn't been adressed yet, is the fact that Scorpion lacks mid hitting attacks that are reliable aside from B1
Scorpion has basically NO Mid starters in this game in any of his variations, and this is putting a big hole on his defensive game, it wasn't relevant before because his ex teleport had armor, so if i would teleport on reaction when being pressured by characters with safe launchers like Kotal who has a -10 F2. Now he has no reliable mids, and in many situations when you want to attack someone, who just poked you, you will get low profiled most of the times, because all of your good buttons are all highs and starts at 9 or 10 frames, so in general a -10 move against scorpion is 0, if he press standing 2 he is at -1 and hits high, and standing 1 he is at neutral, but that move hits high, so the is absolutely nothing holding them back do Mash D1 or D4 when they put you to block something at -10 because he can get low profiled most of the times, he can't punish, so by basically removing the armored teleport NRS openend another weakness in Scorpion's game that maybe it wasn't intended, now he is in desperate help for mids, and B3 doesn't help, it can't be used for checking, is punishable on block too.
And for the matter of fact, his walkspeed doesn't help either so i have to keep backdashing these until i found myself in the corner, or i should do what he was designed for, Yolo a ex teleport in between pressure so my opponent pokes and block on reaction and then punishes me for trying to punish them?
If its not asking much at least standing 1 should hit mid, this would make this poking counter poking better than the joke that is now, and this would go away.
Right now the only good thing happening for Scorpion is Hellfire, because in Hellfire i can fireball cancel normals and stay safe for a while, but Ninjutsu and Inferno are falling a part as the time passes and more Scorpion players are all migrating to hellfire.
So because i start to get messages on "Your character is good, retarded, you should't be adressed anything cos it will make him broken and all yada yada yada" i will tell you right here to shut up, just because my character currently feels good doesn't mean that he doesn't have issues, in fact he has, and will become much more evident as the game passes.
First of, B2 scales way too much damage
I would completely understand the amount of active frames that move has in Ninjutsu and range kind of compensating for the damage Scaling, but that move is already very punishable on block, and is 16 frames startup, which in turn makes Ninjutsu kind of useless to have moves that are extremely hard to use, but when you get a right situation to use it, you get basically no damage from any combo you might start when B2 is your starter.
Sometimes we want to increase the height of the punished character for a better combo conversion, but the damage protection makes it scaling even harder, B2 in Ninjutsu shouldn't scale that hard, that variaton doesn't have special moves in addition to compensate for Scorpion Risks, he gains absolutely nothing when he get to land a B2 compared to other variations.
We've came to the conclusion that AAing with Jump In 3 is 100x better than using B2 because it won't scale and you will get your damage for the least, its much faster, and will hit the opponent much earlier than B2, if JI3 can be used in all variations, then why is the point of having Ninjutsu?
Flame fist (B2) in other variations doesn't add anything special aside from being safer.
There is like a lot of factors against the usability of this move, which by the state of what is now, it makes it useless, when compared with the other tools he gains on variations he has flame fist, just to have an idea:
It scales damage
deals less damage
is hard to convert from (Height restrition and recovery doesn't help)
not worth combing from it
only 2 active frames
very short range
very long startup
Very Long recovery frames
I'm still to find a good reason to use flame fist in competitive play, i have none so far, anything B2 should be doing F3 does it better, F3 can:
Deals more damage
Cover about the same distance
Is special cancelable
Hit confirmable
Easy to combo from it
More active frames
Much faster startup
Flame fist is so bad that using as AA you risk to trade against the character jumping, and even if you get one, The damage he gets from landing such risky attack isn't rewarding, its not even worth spending a bar of meter if you land one, you will spend your bar at cost of having your damage scaled and the factor of dropping a teleport convertion off it will be there every time unless B2 connects against someone airbone.
And Again, why scorpion has B2 anyways? The move is bad on Hit, is bad on block, why is that on the command list?
And this are the problems of B2, now lets see another thing that hasn't been adressed yet, is the fact that Scorpion lacks mid hitting attacks that are reliable aside from B1
Scorpion has basically NO Mid starters in this game in any of his variations, and this is putting a big hole on his defensive game, it wasn't relevant before because his ex teleport had armor, so if i would teleport on reaction when being pressured by characters with safe launchers like Kotal who has a -10 F2. Now he has no reliable mids, and in many situations when you want to attack someone, who just poked you, you will get low profiled most of the times, because all of your good buttons are all highs and starts at 9 or 10 frames, so in general a -10 move against scorpion is 0, if he press standing 2 he is at -1 and hits high, and standing 1 he is at neutral, but that move hits high, so the is absolutely nothing holding them back do Mash D1 or D4 when they put you to block something at -10 because he can get low profiled most of the times, he can't punish, so by basically removing the armored teleport NRS openend another weakness in Scorpion's game that maybe it wasn't intended, now he is in desperate help for mids, and B3 doesn't help, it can't be used for checking, is punishable on block too.
And for the matter of fact, his walkspeed doesn't help either so i have to keep backdashing these until i found myself in the corner, or i should do what he was designed for, Yolo a ex teleport in between pressure so my opponent pokes and block on reaction and then punishes me for trying to punish them?
If its not asking much at least standing 1 should hit mid, this would make this poking counter poking better than the joke that is now, and this would go away.
Right now the only good thing happening for Scorpion is Hellfire, because in Hellfire i can fireball cancel normals and stay safe for a while, but Ninjutsu and Inferno are falling a part as the time passes and more Scorpion players are all migrating to hellfire.
