Should a backdash really cost a stamina bar?

[Doombawkz]

Forward movement leads to 50/50 mix ups and pressure, which is what Mortal Kombat X revolves around. The risk of running is almost always worth the reward.

The point is that offense is currently extremely strong in Mortal Kombat X. Watch any grand finals of any major off-line event for evidence. Is buffing backdashes the absolute answer? I am not sure, but I believe that defense does need some type of buff.

For example, most of the top tier strategies that the community complains about (i.e., D'Vorah's f+1,1,2 xx GWC pressure, Erron Black's 2,1,1,2,2 pressure, Johnny Cage's b+1,2 pressure, Kung Lao's EX hat spin pressure, Quan Chi's EX rune pressure, etc.) can be fixed by reducing the resources of a block breaker rather than tediously normalizing the block frame advantage of every move.

I agreed with that right below where you quoted, saying I don't feel every character needs all of the tools. Personally I don't see too much trouble with Cage, but thats just me.

Reducing the cost of block breaker to 1 wouldn't be too bad of an idea, but I think I would rather see it simply cost half as much stamina rather than half as much meter.

 

[tatterbug4]

Another good point. Scorpion can safely retreat after fbc pressure.

I'm sure that's really the biggest point. Because other than that I think it just takes away a little bit of spacing.

 

[Farpafraf]

I don't see what's wrong with backdashes or block breakers to be fair. Block breakers might cost too much, that's all I can think of. If you're going to argue about backdashes though - just don't. Go back and read the other pages.

Honestly block breakers are borderline useless: just look at how often they are used in competitive play.
I did read the majority of the posts in this thread but I still think backdashes are weak.

 

[Scott The Scot]

Yes, they do.

Really!? Again!? You're doing it again? Stop just quoting one part of my message and addressing one part of my message then ignoring the rest. It's just plain ignorant, rude and foolish.

I don't think it's normal to make up your own definitions, not say them, then just make arguments based on that. Surely you can see the obvious flaw in that.

 

[Scott The Scot]

Honestly block breakers are borderline useless: just look at how often they are used in competitive play.
I did read the majority of the posts in this thread but I still think backdashes are weak.

Sonic Fox has uses them against DJT when he's in near death territory - nobody should be getting chipped to death if they can block break. I think people forget to use them.

Tell me why do you think backdashes are weak. Have you thought that maybe you're just not good at using them yet?

 

[atljonesbro3]

Why does foward dashing cost no stamina? Or even jumping? Only seems fair that rush down tools should have a cost if every defensive tool does.

 

[Doombawkz]

Why does foward dashing cost no stamina? Or even jumping? Only seems fair that rush down tools should have a cost if every defensive tool does.

Running costs stamina.

Forward dashing puts you in recovery and is full-combo punishable if read.
Jumping can be both offensive and defensive.

 

[Tony at Home]

Its not cherry picking. Look at any high level gameplay and you will see Anti-Airing going on. Anti-Airing is the one aspect of the defensive game that doesnt need buffing because you have so many options(Some options work better for some characters than others, gotta figure out which):

D2
Standing/Down 1
Trip Guarding
Low profile moves
Backdash
Air to Air
NJP

Thats not even mentioning character specific options.

You know jumping is strong in a game when 2 of the options to beat jumping listed, are also jumping.

Anyway, there's no golden bullet for anti-airing. The best option is just to adopt the meta top players are using. Looking at tournament play, I noticed two things.

1) There are very few successful anti-airs.
2) There are very few jump ins that need to be anti-aired.

The meta appears to be shifting to the options where tripguarding and backdashing are the two options. D4 low profiles tend to work best in between- when it's too late to do a good backdash, and you're juuuust too close to do a successful tripguard. So I kind of put d4 into the category of a clutch tripgaurd. That's where it works most consistently.

But yeah, players are generally defending against jumps by staying out of jump distance. In any other game this would completely wreck the meta, because you need to get in jump distance at one point to start offense. But the run mechanic in MKX tends to get around this.

Watching DJT's Cage, I saw a pretty consistent pattern where he'd stay out of jump range entirely, and then when he wanted to get in, he would use run. It's very seldom I see players advance by slowly walking forward. It puts them in jump-in territory for too long. Run means if an opponent forward jumps at you, you're going to go over them, they're going to cancel their run on block- probably won't be able to tripguard you, but will be at advantage to start pressure.

For me, it's works quite well. It may be too early to say, but I strongly feel this is how the meta works.

Anti-airs are crap.

But we don't really need them to be good anyway.

 

[Tony at Home]

On topic:

I'm a bit in the middle but I'm leaning towards "yes, it should"

Backdashes tend to be a bit weak because of the large amount of advancing strings in this game. But they also tend to be strong because of the nature of MKX strings really "locking you in" for a long time. Anytime you successfuly backdash, chances are you are punishing something.

Something like "you can still backdash, but it has no invincibility when you don't have stamina" makes more sense to me. At least because it seems odd that when I'm out of stamina my best option to position myself a bit further is jumping backwards.

 

[REDRUM]

This game punishes defense big time, we just gotta hold that....

Just play the game as it was developed and released. /

 

[SaJa]

We should be able to run backward as well !!!

 

[juicepouch]

Yeah, sure.
Characters can get in, but what about the ones that can't?

F/T, Goro... No reason to make us even worse.

Goro feels like he was designed with a different game in mind

Why do I have the shittiest movement options and bad anti airs? Either let me run around like a moron or make it impossible to jump away, he's like zangief without the lariat

 

[Eddy Wang]

One last post, then I'm out of here for good.
I keep seeing people saying "oh you're cherry picking, picking all these characters with good anti-airs, what about characters like Ferra/Torr?"
Everyone agrees that Tanya is the most dangerous character in the air right?
It took me all of 40 seconds to find this.

Ferra/Torr is clearly free to jump-ins.
Edit: Also added for those of you who like to be frugal with meter and hate Tanya's ex teleport

Great examples, Torr Armored Shoryuken its clearly a move designed for anti-air

Words are that ex teleport is too safe, even though it hits high. A pure game of faces here, i can't read who is playing Torr but he outread MIT on this situation, probably because MIT didn't want to lose position advantage in the corner, interesting.

 

[Farpafraf]

Sonic Fox has uses them against DJT when he's in near death territory - nobody should be getting chipped to death if they can block break. I think people forget to use them.

Tell me why do you think backdashes are weak. Have you thought that maybe you're just not good at using them yet?

That's why I said bordeline useless: unless you're dying from chip damage why would you waste two meter bars and the stamina bar that way?
I'm probably not good at using them but my impression is that they are generally not worth at the cost of a stamina bar.

 

[Zoidberg747]

Street fighter is a completely different game. DP fadc is upwards of 40% and damage in SF is much more valuable since the pace of that game is slow and 5% life is a huge difference when it comes to lifeleads and footsies.

You cannot compare the games, they're drastically different and follow different mindsets.

That is kind of what I was getting at in my post.

 

[Doombawkz]

Great examples, Torr Armored Shoryuken its clearly a move designed for anti-air

Words are that ex teleport is too safe, even though it hits high. A pure game of faces here, i can't read who is playing Torr but he outread MIT on this situation, probably because MIT didn't want to lose position advantage in the corner, interesting.

Probably Grr. He still lost though, since Lackey doesn't have bunk all to stop Tanya from teleporting full screen.
Every other variation does though, but they lose the ability to MB AA her.

 

[M2Dave]

Really!? Again!? You're doing it again? Stop just quoting one part of my message and addressing one part of my message then ignoring the rest. It's just plain ignorant, rude and foolish.

You are a person who watches the grand finals at Combo Breaker and identifies footsies and zoning. If I am going to engage in an argument with someone, the minimum requirement is being capable to observe high level matches and deduce which strategies win games. The reason I choose to ignore most of your points is because they are not based on reality, at least not mine.

 

[Scott The Scot]

That's why I said bordeline useless: unless you're dying from chip damage why would you waste two meter bars and the stamina bar that way?
I'm probably not good at using them but my impression is that they are generally not worth at the cost of a stamina bar.

Maybe that's the use of it that it was desiged for.

You are a person who watches the grand finals at Combo Breaker and identifies footsies and zoning. If I am going to engage in an argument with someone, the minimum requirement is being capable to observe high level matches and deduce which strategies win games. The reason I choose to ignore most of your points is because they are not based on reality, at least not mine.

And you are a person who only wants to push their own agenda and doesn't even live in reality. I think we're done here, Dave.