Guide "I Love My Job" -- Deathstroke General Discussion Thread

[Mikman360]

What should I do when he goes to staff mode?

Don't quote me on this since I'm not an expert on the matchup, but I save a ton of my meter for MB bounce attacks. Nightwing players are very reliant on their single hit poke moves in order to condition you to block how they want you to and put themselves at a frame advantage. If you MB F3, you will eat a single poke and hit them, or they will block, putting you at the frame advantage for a period of time.

And throw drones. Seriously, one flies by, throw it.

 

[Matix218]

Silent Jay
GGA Slips
Aris
Vagrant
Rampage254
@ducknation
J360
DJTMIT
general m2dave
@every other DS player I didnt mention by name

I read (and occasionally am involved with) many arguments about the tournament viability of this character (no offense to Dave but obviously you know you usually are in the middle of these discussions lol). Anyway, If you look at the initial matchup charts that are available on the forums for DS (MIT's for example) you will see that the general consensus is that against most of the cast DS seems to go even.

Obviously in tournament situations, you are going to see much more of the top tier characters (your Aquamans, Batmans, Supermans, Black Adams, etc) which is part of the reason that M2Dave constantly goes on record saying that Deathstroke is not Tournament Viable (because he loses to the top tier characters such as Batman, Black Adam, Superman). In my personal experience I believe that Batman is the worst of these 3 "top tier" chararcters for DS with Black Adam being not far behind. I think that superman is a losing match-up too but more winnable.

I dont think any of these matchups are worse than 6-4 (possibly batman being 7-3 but the more I level up in this matchup I think it may be no worse than 6-4 which is obviously winnable, especially in a tournament first to 2 setting). My question is this, and I pose this to Dave and all of the other people who do not think that DS is a viable character: Does losing 6-4 to the 3 (arguably) top tournament characters in the game (in their current state, pre-patch of course) really make Deathstroke not tournament viable? Is a 6-4 really that terrible that it cannot be overcome by outplaying your opponent? Think Kabal in MK9. 16 bit has taken out top Kabals in tournament in a matchup most would consider worse than any of Deathstrokes. Same with DJT at evo, etc.

Most likely all 3 of the characters I just named that DS loses to will be in some way "normalized" in the next patch, likely DS will remain the same given that he has already received significant nerfs (here's to hoping we get a slight buff, maybe with the trait functionality/activation?) so these matchups (while they may still remain 6-4 ish in the other character's advantage) will likely not be getting any worse, potentially better.

Also, look at the rest of the cast and how their matchups are against those same top characters (Aqua, BA, Batman, Superman). MOST of the cast faces a losing matchup against these characters in their current state, most of which much worse than DS. Does that mean that at this point there are only 4-5 tournament viable characters in this game? I would venture to say that this is most likely not true. The game is still new enough that there is much more matchup knowledge and technology to still be discovered and I think that it is very closed minded to think that a large portion of the cast is not viable in tournament.

Aris on one of his podcast even said that he didnt care about the low gunshot block disadvantage nerf because when he is playing sharp and reactionary, which is how DS must be played,l he will be hitting the majority of his shots anyway, not getting them blocked. He seems to think that the buff to wakeup flip becoming invincible in the most recent patch is a significant buff, more-so than the nerf to the low shots. I will say this, if you are purely looking to zone and win the match by doing so, the low shot nerf does ruin the character. But if you plan on playing strong footsies, getting a life lead with combo damage from 50 50 situations, and then playing reactionary to your opponent with the guns, this character absolutely can still win, and even be very difficult for many of your opponents. DS has some very strong (and safe) normals: j3, f3, b1u2, 132, b23f2, d1, etc and also has safe wakeup option (spin) that can be option selected into flip if they try to cross over you.

I dont consider DS to be a zoning character, nor do I play him as such. Sure I will be happy to fire reactionary gunshots when i have a life lead to help maintain it and hopefully make it difficult for the opponent to get back in, but I certainly do not rely on guns exclusively to win the match by any means, and neither do the other DS players on this forum.

I just want to say that IMO this character is absolutely tournament viable in his current state, and it is ok to say that even if he does lose 4-6 to several of the top 5 characters. Sure those matchups will be difficult but they are far from un winnable. I am interested to see how this all shakes out post-patch and if some minds end up getting changed on this character and his viability.

Just wanted to see what other peoples reactions/opinions on this are.

-Matix

 

[G4S Silent Jay]

Don't quote me on this since I'm not an expert on the matchup, but I save a ton of my meter for MB bounce attacks. Nightwing players are very reliant on their single hit poke moves in order to condition you to block how they want you to and put themselves at a frame advantage. If you MB F3, you will eat a single poke and hit them, or they will block, putting you at the frame advantage for a period of time.

And throw drones. Seriously, one flies by, throw it.

The stage select thing is just too situational to be helpful in my opinion. Because if you play by the stage rules that The Break uses, then you really can't be sure you'll ever get Watchtower (like the poor Hawkgirl play I played against R1 where the random stage was Ferris....).

Honestly, nothing to personally add on this MU since the only NW I ever played against didn't take the game seriously enough and I don't know jack-shit on this MU off the top of my head.

 

[G4S Silent Jay]

I feel like he can be viable but onlt if you're REALLY willing to put in more work. Remember, a lot of the Top-tiers that DS has even or just slightly losing MUs to, aren't all that difficult to use effectively. This means you not onlt now have to outplay them, but you have to do so with a character that's gonna be harder to use effectively. Like, playing against my teammates GL last night (because fuck shazam), I realized that after F3, and going for B1U2, the U2 would wiff randomly, and then I eat a B13 into full combo and get outtamaged anyway. Again, not even to say that GL is a super hard MU for DS, but I just feel like you still have to put in more effort into using him well. If you wanna even use guns, you need to constantly be aware of your location on screen and what every character's options are to punish low-shots that that distance. Which ranges from HG getting nothing from anywhere, to Aquaman getting 20% from just 1 step outside of full-screen.

I honestly feel like with DS, if you want to honestly do well with him, you're gonna wanna have at least a secondary to try to cover any difficult MUs. Be it MUs that DS just honestly has a hard time with (3-7 against Flash who is gaining popularity...) or ones that you just personally have no idea how to handle (like me against Harley.... Cause really, not a fuckin clue, I was trying to learn that as I played...) so having a scondary is what will really help in the long run.

Hell, people still give all the props to ChrisG for doing so well with GA, but even he breaks out BA for MUs he doesn't want to have anything to do with.

And as far as the possability of the current top-tiers getting nerfed, there's also the list of lower and mid-tier characters DS already only goes even with or slightly wins that could get buffed like crazy to contend with those top tiers, just so NRS doesnnt have to do any more nerfing. Then DS gets left in the dust with what will realistically be all losing or even MUs (with Hawkgirl still being a 6-4 or possibly still 7-3). And if that occurs, he will lose any viability because the only people you will beat are people who just lack experience against DS.

 

[Mikman360]

The stage select thing is just too situational to be helpful in my opinion. Because if you play by the stage rules that The Break uses, then you really can't be sure you'll ever get Watchtower (like the poor Hawkgirl play I played against R1 where the random stage was Ferris....).

Honestly, nothing to personally add on this MU since the only NW I ever played against didn't take the game seriously enough and I don't know jack-shit on this MU off the top of my head.

Sure or not, pick Watchtower 24/7 whenever you can. Press every advantage you can.

 

[NHDR]

Maybe I'm wrong but Deathstroke reminds me of SF4/SFxT Akuma: zone until you get a knockdown, then go in. I'm trying my hardest to play a rushdown DS, though I WILL sit back and fire guns when its advantageous.

 

[G4S Silent Jay]

Maybe I'm wrong but Deathstroke reminds me of SF4/SFxT Akuma: zone until you get a knockdown, then go in. I'm trying my hardest to play a rushdown DS, though I WILL sit back and fire guns when its advantageous.

Except Akuma actually has really high damage. Although that's to balance out his extremely low health.

DS had his zoning game nerfed because online players were having issues getting around it. And it was a good way to compliment his average rush-down. That's what made him a Top 10 character before he got nerfed. However, him taking such a hard hit when the did nerf him. Because, let's be serious here. he didn't JUST lose more safety from low guns at longer distances. He lost chip damage on all his guns, meter building (And DS is a HUGE meter whore and that's not even for combo damage, that's just to be able to zone/counter-zone and open people up in the first place), and then to top things off, they removed more block-stun from ALL of his guns (including the assault rifle which is already trash).

I find the nerfs to be a double-edge sword. On one hand, they DID hurt DS. On the other, it did force a lot of people to learn how to use him more effectively (which would have already happened over time, but it sped things up.).




BUT! To your actual post at hand, in some cases, you can't really zone with him because of the nerfs to his guns. but when you can, I feel you should, and when you are forced to either get in, or they get in, that's when you go ham with the 50/50s and pressure.

That's how I tend to run DS anyway.

 

[Mikman360]

I don't get why the DS forums are the most tier driven forum. It's driving me ****ing batty. Can't we just play the gawd **** character because we want to? It's always an argument of whether or not someone thinks he's good enough to tier whore with. My gawd, get outta here. I don't see the Green Arrow forums constantly debating over this. Raven? Nope.

The fact is, this **** is pointless. There is NOTHING we're gaining from this stuff. We're not developing the character in any way, we're not bettering ourselves and the community. Get off your tier horses and hit the lab. Figure out a way to break the 30% range in combos, play your good Ares friend nd figure out the matchup for the thread, test some oki setups, or SOMETHING. Do something USEFUL.

 

[G4S Silent Jay]

I don't get why the DS forums are the most tier driven forum. It's driving me ****ing batty. Can't we just play the gawd **** character because we want to? It's always an argument of whether or not someone thinks he's good enough to tier whore with. My gawd, get outta here. I don't see the Green Arrow forums constantly debating over this. Raven? Nope.

The fact is, this **** is pointless. There is NOTHING we're gaining from this stuff. We're not developing the character in any way, we're not bettering ourselves and the community. Get off your tier horses and hit the lab. Figure out a way to break the 30% range in combos, play your good Ares friend nd figure out the matchup for the thread, test some oki setups, or SOMETHING. Do something USEFUL.

Oki doesn't work really AT ALL against Shazam, he also gets in on zoning him pretty free pretty free... Really all I've found out recently.


And it's not about tier-whoring for me. I play DS because DS is one of my favorite DC characters, and he's also the most fun character for me to play. But I also plan on going to more tournaments and want to do well, so that DOES factor in. So, if he falls behind the rest of the cast in terms of how tournament viable he is, I can't be the guy to recommend him past having fun. As is, I think he's viable, you just NEED to know your MUs and be willing to put in more work than someone who may be playing one of the other top-tiers that requires less effort or severely out-damages DS in general.

 

[JokeStroke]

everyone talks about the lgs nerf but the wakeup buff killed his okie and the D2 buff was the final nail in his coffin...

 

[Axel_Redd]

i really hope they give DS another buff, hopefully boon has heard us mention it enuff x.x

 

[G4S Silent Jay]

i really hope they give DS another buff, hopefully boon has heard us mention it enuff x.x

At this point I'm just hoping he doesn't take more nerfs. A buff to help him out just a tad more would be excellent, but as long as he doesn't take any more hits, I'll be fine.

 

[Axel_Redd]

At this point I'm just hoping he doesn't take more nerfs. A buff to help him out just a tad more would be excellent, but as long as he doesn't take any more hits, I'll be fine.

as much as capcom sux, i'll give em 1 thing, they dont give a shit about what any casual would think when it comes to balancing their fighting games.

 

[Mikman360]

everyone talks about the lgs nerf but the wakeup buff killed his okie and the D2 buff was the final nail in his coffin...

The wakeup thing was a bug. It helped DS in its way too, pair that up with Flip being useable as a wakeup now and I think we got our pay from it. DS' wakeup ability sucked before the fix.

I DID foresee the D2 buff being bad for DS though. No one believed me.

 

[G4S Silent Jay]

The wakeup thing was a bug. It helped DS in its way too, pair that up with Flip being useable as a wakeup now and I think we got our pay from it. DS' wakeup ability sucked before the fix.

I DID foresee the D2 buff being bad for DS though. No one believed me.

Yeah, Wake-up buff gave him a few more good outs. Fucked up his Oki in some MUs, but not too badly overall. Worth it there.


And D2 hurt, but also helped since DS got a nice D2 buff himself. Fuckin love that thing. Beat Batman's J2 clean for full combo you say? I'll take it!

 

[Matix218]

The wakeup thing was a bug. It helped DS in its way too, pair that up with Flip being useable as a wakeup now and I think we got our pay from it. DS' wakeup ability sucked before the fix.

I DID foresee the D2 buff being bad for DS though. No one believed me.

The wake-up buff took away some of DS's oki pressure/setups but also made his wake-up attacks more useful. Personally I'd rather have the oki but whatever.

The universal d2 buff absolutely hurt DS. So many times when you used to be able to safely do a j3 it will now get beat and full combo punished. It greatly hurt his jump pressure which was a huge part of his game.

Also I honestly would be fine with the lgs frame nerf if they had just left his chip and blockstun alone. I don't understand why that was done but I guess the online scrubs made their voices heard to nrs...

 

[NHDR]

as much as capcom sux, i'll give em 1 thing, they dont give a shit about what any casual would think when it comes to balancing their fighting games.

Disagree. They changed the whole SFxT game because there were a ton of scrubs complaining how OP fireballs were (they're not). They've nerfed too many characters in SF4 just because people hate them--Akuma, Seth, for example--and they even nerfed the FADC mechanic. A lot of the suggestions made to balance SFxT and SF4 were shit, it was just a result of people not putting work in. And honestly, I think SF4 has the worst average player skill. Never seen so many awful players in my life.

 

[Ermaculate_Slim]

You guys should start using Deathstroke's D2 more.Since the buff to D2's its become a pretty reliable AA.Just wanted to throw that out there.

 

[Ermaculate_Slim]

The wake-up buff took away some of DS's oki pressure/setups but also made his wake-up attacks more useful. Personally I'd rather have the oki but whatever.

The universal d2 buff absolutely hurt DS. So many times when you used to be able to safely do a j3 it will now get beat and full combo punished. It greatly hurt his jump pressure which was a huge part of his game.

Also I honestly would be fine with the lgs frame nerf if they had just left his chip and blockstun alone. I don't understand why that was done but I guess the online scrubs made their voices heard to nrs...

Deathstroke's oki set ups after a HKD are still viable on certain opponents mostly the ones w/o fast advancing special moves.The buff to D2's imo didnt hurt him that much cause to tell you the truth you shouldn't be jumping unless to go for a Air to Air or cross up attempt.Besides his D2 is alot better then it used to be if timed right the worst case scenario is a trade and I'll take that all day.

 

[Matix218]

Deathstroke's oki set ups after a HKD are still viable on certain opponents mostly the ones w/o fast advancing special moves.The buff to D2's imo didnt hurt him that much cause to tell you the truth you shouldn't be jumping unless to go for a Air to Air or cross up attempt.Besides his D2 is alot better then it used to be if timed right the worst case scenario is a trade and I'll take that all day.

Yeah I agree he still has solid oki regardless of the wake-up buff. I guess I need to start using d2 more instead of just going for the easy aa sword flip. What is your bnb that you use off of an aa d2?

 

[Drizzle]

Disagree. They changed the whole SFxT game because there were a ton of scrubs complaining how OP fireballs were (they're not). They've nerfed too many characters in SF4 just because people hate them--Akuma, Seth, for example--and they even nerfed the FADC mechanic. A lot of the suggestions made to balance SFxT and SF4 were shit, it was just a result of people not putting work in. And honestly, I think SF4 has the worst average player skill. Never seen so many awful players in my life.

You do realize that Akuma could loop his s.HK on some characters and it did obscene amounts of stun, right? Worse, the move was 0 on block so there was almost no risk throwing it out. If he knocked 'Gief down it was basically GG because of how ridiculous his vortex was. That character had it coming.

Seth is pretty much in the same boat. He had absolutely no weaknesses aside from low health, and that's a poor way to balance a character. If vanilla SF4 had been played for longer, he'd undoubtedly be one of the best, too. 9-1 match-ups are things that should never exist in a fighting game.

They didn't nerf the FADC mechanic at all, by the way. I'm not sure what you're talking about there.

I agree that they kind of watered SF4 down with all of the nerfs, but some things had to go without question. The fact that the current game is pretty decently balanced is nothing but a fortunate accident.

 

[Ermaculate_Slim]

Yeah I agree he still has solid oki regardless of the wake-up buff. I guess I need to start using d2 more instead of just going for the easy aa sword flip. What is your bnb that you use off of an aa d2?

D2, 3,2,3 F23 Sword Flip I think its about 29% but since d2 scales thats prolly the best u gonna get.

 

[Mikman360]

Also I honestly would be fine with the lgs frame nerf if they had just left his chip and blockstun alone. I don't understand why that was done but I guess the online scrubs made their voices heard to nrs...

That's literally all they nerfed. If they didn't nerf that, nothing would be nerfed other than the recovery time of air guns.

Deathstroke's oki set ups after a HKD are still viable on certain opponents mostly the ones w/o fast advancing special moves.The buff to D2's imo didnt hurt him that much cause to tell you the truth you shouldn't be jumping unless to go for a Air to Air or cross up attempt.Besides his D2 is alot better then it used to be if timed right the worst case scenario is a trade and I'll take that all day.

It did hurt. Idk why you're under the impression that we're not supposed to jump, but DS' jump moves are pretty good. Ji3 is like the 4th best in the game or something (I think Lex, Joker, and GA have better ones), and his Ji2 gives you a free 50/50. It hurt pretty badly, I'm getting AAed by KF and GL players now (wtf...). I will admit he received the buff well himself, his D2 got a massive improvement, but it doesn't make up for what he lost in return.

Yeah I agree he still has solid oki regardless of the wake-up buff. I guess I need to start using d2 more instead of just going for the easy aa sword flip. What is your bnb that you use off of an aa d2?

D2, B3, Ji3, 323, 12 xx Flip for high opponents
D2, F3, 323, F23 xx Flip for grounded opponents
D2, 323, F23 xx Flip for very low D2 juggles

 

[Ermaculate_Slim]

It did hurt. Idk why you're under the impression that we're not supposed to jump, but DS' jump moves are pretty good. Ji3 is like the 4th best in the game or something (I think Lex, Joker, and GA have better ones), and his Ji2 gives you a free 50/50. It hurt pretty badly, I'm getting AAed by KF and GL players now (wtf...). I will admit he received the buff well himself, his D2 got a massive improvement, but it doesn't make up for what he lost in return.

Funny you should say GL because the ambiguous cross ups work against him well.If he tries to wake up with lantern's might you can punish him hard. KF on the other hand....you can't do shit against that character.I hate her with a passion lemme shut up before I start ranting

 

[Mikman360]

Funny you should say GL because the ambiguous cross ups work against him well.If he tries to wake up with lantern's might you can punish him hard. KF on the other hand....you can't do shit against that character.I hate her with a passion lemme shut up before I start ranting

Well conditioned jump ins are different. A safe jump in is a safe jump in. I just mean in the neutral game, I can't believe characters like those 2 can even pierce the range of a friggin broadsword swing with their hands. It has nothing to do with matchups.

(KF is free as **** though)