First and foremost, @
NinjaGrinder, I respect you bro, but regarding gj's, I will only say this: With them, the game is stagnant and worse yet, DEAD. Without them, people will play again, and isn't that more important?
@
Shock and @
Konqrr Please refer the hacker to this page of the thread before they handle H.Smoke.
First, I will be fair here, ALL of us who are now pissing and moaning about H.Smoke need to step back and ask, "Are we complaining now because OUR character is getting nerfed?"
It was ok when Kabal got nerfed, right? Now H.Smoke is getting the nerf bat and we're all up in arms...maybe that says something about us relying too much on a character that can beat you in 2 mistakes.
That said, I completely disagree with totally changing H.Smoke and any of his moveset. My reasoning is because in UMK3, H.Smoke and Scorpion played ENTIRELY differently. Now from what I read in all these changes in UMK3TE, Scorpion is a much better character and still plays nothing like UMK3 Smoke.
Now the hacker is considering drastically changing H.Smoke as well according to Shock and Konqrr. What this means is that now we currently have 2 entirely different playing characters(who share similar specials), with entirely different strategies, and one of them (Scorpion) has potentially drastically risen up the viability list. Why bother to completely change the other character(H.Smoke) and COMPLETELY remove an entire playstyle that was already unique? By doing so, H.Smoke not only (as mentioned by @
AK Juggs ) loses his options, which shouldn't be the intention of a balance, but he becomes an entirely different character. Without his air throw, his reduced amount of hits before spear, etc, this is an entirely different character, and needlessly so. Ultimately, the character that is removed(Old H.Smoke) is already a distinct character from New Scorpion AND New H.Smoke, and by removing OH.Smoke, you leave one character completely on the cutting room floor that would have been distinctly different from the other two(New H.Smoke, Old H.Smoke and New Scorpion)
I would recommend that H.Smoke's nerfs revolve around his walk speed, reduced amount of hits before spear OR double DP on TP used in his standard BnB combo(but keep spear hit limit at 4), and overall damage nerf so that it takes more like 3-4 mistakes to kill. The only other option would be to potentially decrease the timer on his spear so that he could do 2hit Popup, RH, Spear, 3 hit popup, aaHP, JK, airthrow.
Alternatively, if you want to still leave in a "Smoke Transformation" code, then maybe have O.HSmoke and N.HSmoke. NHS selectable via the main character select screen and OHS selectable via transfomation code through robo-smoke, similar to the old versions of characters in SSF2T, and limit them via damage nerf.
Just food for thought. I could just be an idiot though, LOL.