RYX
BIG PUSHER
Let me preface this and say that I don't want to include universal buffs for parts of Kotal Kahn's kit (abysmal recovery on Offering/Sun Ray, awkwardness of his normals, etc) because those are already known problems and I'll be disappointed if they aren't addressed in the future. This is just how I want to make Blood God more unique and appealing.
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So, I kind of wanted to start this as a 'Kotal Kahn Buff Wishlist' thread mostly to make fun of the other threads in that same vein, but that hardly seemed productive of anyone's time. As someone who was tremendously excited for Kotal Kahn as I'm sure many others were, I'm also sure that many others were incredibly disappointed with what we got, for different reasons. I wanted to make a discussion about giving Blood God buffs that he needs, but... what can you give him? What does that change to solve the issue of nobody wants to play him? What would make him more interesting?
I sort of ruminated on it while playing him in practice mode, just sort of dabbling with totems, and then it hit me when I realized that his Obsidian Totem reduces the damage taken by Blood Offering.
What if we made his totems revolve around the rest of his moveset?
And by that I mean, augmenting his totems to perform different functions rather than just being flat duration buffs -- let's give them a more tangible reason to want to use them, to differentiate them outside of "take less damage, do more damage, and a bugged totem that doesn't do anything"
So, I thought about it for a while, and here's what I came up with in an attempt to give him more diverse usage and a more provoking thought pattern as you play the character, without changing him radically.
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Blood Totem feels like it should have some connection to Blood Offering. Now, what I propose for him is that while Blood Totem is active, Blood Offering will take 15% health from Kotal Kahn, but give him 2 or 3 hits of armor for [X] seconds. In addition, the damage caused by Blood Offering is caused AFTER the totem expires or his armor is broken to give him an attempt to mitigate the damage that it will cause after it times out. This gives him the armor that this variation so desperately needs, as well as providing him his standard absurd damage, but at a higher cost. I think this is the most interesting totem just by virtue of how you (theoretically) interact with it, assuming it's fixed in the foreseeable future.
Obsidian Totem already has a useful function in that it both provides a defensive boost and a reduction in the cost of Blood Offering itself (a little less than 7%). I don't really know what all to do with this totem, to be honest; it's more "in tune" with his move set, but I'd like to propose something anyway. While active, his air throw gains immunity frames on its startup; this gives him a very good sense of baiting out jumps and makes you want to approach him from the ground, where he can threaten you with his good-reaching normals and powerful pokes.
Crystal Totem, is where I would add a condition to his parry. The parry would be buffed so as to stagger anything that it currently parries. This solidifies Crystal Totem as a flexible, punishment-oriented totem with a clear bonus to punishing a stray poke or an enemy's attempt to start rushing you down and the reward for keeping your enemy held down with chip damage. To compensate for the improved parry, I think the damage buff from the totem itself should be reduced.
(Going a little further, I'd actually suggest that the damage from Crystal Totem be reduced even more in favor of buffs to things like Blood Offering where you gain more hits to make up for the damage loss but with having to take a risk, or Sun Disc, where it might start up faster or stagger on hit instead of being a knockdown vs grounded opponents/anyone if he EX's it for a standing reset. Or, you could do something with Sun Ray where anything Kotal does while inside of it will activate and recover faster for a conditional speed buff while the Totem is active, but this might be better suited to Obsidian. So many possibilities.)
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That's really it. I just wanted to post my thoughts on what we could do to make Blood God's totems more engaging. I don't think any of it's necessary but it's what I'd like to see. Thanks for the read. Maybe I'll do something for Sun God soon.
----
So, I kind of wanted to start this as a 'Kotal Kahn Buff Wishlist' thread mostly to make fun of the other threads in that same vein, but that hardly seemed productive of anyone's time. As someone who was tremendously excited for Kotal Kahn as I'm sure many others were, I'm also sure that many others were incredibly disappointed with what we got, for different reasons. I wanted to make a discussion about giving Blood God buffs that he needs, but... what can you give him? What does that change to solve the issue of nobody wants to play him? What would make him more interesting?
I sort of ruminated on it while playing him in practice mode, just sort of dabbling with totems, and then it hit me when I realized that his Obsidian Totem reduces the damage taken by Blood Offering.
What if we made his totems revolve around the rest of his moveset?
And by that I mean, augmenting his totems to perform different functions rather than just being flat duration buffs -- let's give them a more tangible reason to want to use them, to differentiate them outside of "take less damage, do more damage, and a bugged totem that doesn't do anything"
So, I thought about it for a while, and here's what I came up with in an attempt to give him more diverse usage and a more provoking thought pattern as you play the character, without changing him radically.
------------------
Blood Totem feels like it should have some connection to Blood Offering. Now, what I propose for him is that while Blood Totem is active, Blood Offering will take 15% health from Kotal Kahn, but give him 2 or 3 hits of armor for [X] seconds. In addition, the damage caused by Blood Offering is caused AFTER the totem expires or his armor is broken to give him an attempt to mitigate the damage that it will cause after it times out. This gives him the armor that this variation so desperately needs, as well as providing him his standard absurd damage, but at a higher cost. I think this is the most interesting totem just by virtue of how you (theoretically) interact with it, assuming it's fixed in the foreseeable future.
Obsidian Totem already has a useful function in that it both provides a defensive boost and a reduction in the cost of Blood Offering itself (a little less than 7%). I don't really know what all to do with this totem, to be honest; it's more "in tune" with his move set, but I'd like to propose something anyway. While active, his air throw gains immunity frames on its startup; this gives him a very good sense of baiting out jumps and makes you want to approach him from the ground, where he can threaten you with his good-reaching normals and powerful pokes.
Crystal Totem, is where I would add a condition to his parry. The parry would be buffed so as to stagger anything that it currently parries. This solidifies Crystal Totem as a flexible, punishment-oriented totem with a clear bonus to punishing a stray poke or an enemy's attempt to start rushing you down and the reward for keeping your enemy held down with chip damage. To compensate for the improved parry, I think the damage buff from the totem itself should be reduced.
(Going a little further, I'd actually suggest that the damage from Crystal Totem be reduced even more in favor of buffs to things like Blood Offering where you gain more hits to make up for the damage loss but with having to take a risk, or Sun Disc, where it might start up faster or stagger on hit instead of being a knockdown vs grounded opponents/anyone if he EX's it for a standing reset. Or, you could do something with Sun Ray where anything Kotal does while inside of it will activate and recover faster for a conditional speed buff while the Totem is active, but this might be better suited to Obsidian. So many possibilities.)
------------------
That's really it. I just wanted to post my thoughts on what we could do to make Blood God's totems more engaging. I don't think any of it's necessary but it's what I'd like to see. Thanks for the read. Maybe I'll do something for Sun God soon.
