Fromundaman
I write too much.
Copy pasting from a post I made elsewhere with slight modifications:
Running crowbar is a gimmick. MB B3 and his entire "Buff" is gone and full combo punished.
MB Gun is only marginally more useful than Lex's MB mine in IGAU.
Loss of flower means no more wakeup, loss of his main/best armor breaking tool (D2>Flower was amazing for anti-armor purposes) and his pressure now has holes, as the threat of flower was how you got opponents to block teeth and start mixups.
That's far from all of it though:
-OTGs are gone.
-Fast restands are gone.
-J2 got EXTREMELY nerfed.
-D2 got nerfed.
-212 got nerfed.
-213 got nerfed and is no longer a HKD.
-32 and 323 got nerfed.
-Teeth knockback decay was increased, meaning less teeth per combo, AKA less meter gain and damage. The damage is somewhat offset by moves in general seeming to hit harder though.
-Special inputs were changed for no reason (Less of a nerf and more of something that fucks with muscle memory).
-Mechanic changes have made all instant overheads mids, meaning he lost IA J2>11>Can for full combo, and therefore opponents have no reason to block high. These same mechanic changes actually make his level 3 trait useless since his aerials count as mid for almost the entirety of his jump when he's in it.
-Could be wrong but the range on J3 feels smaller.
-Crowbar lost a LOT of hitstun. Like more than half of what it used to have, especially on the MB version. Not really a reason to MB it now other than because it looks cool.
-Restand resets are gone since Flower is gone.
Things he gained:
-Better forward dash
-Better walk speed
-Better trait (Although barely... it still sucks)
-Gun is stronger. Maybe that's because less characters low profile it by moving now. I'm seeing people in this thread say his zoning got weaker; I 100% disagree. It's all he currently has going for him.
-Execution requirement is much lower (Also might be why people think he's better now.... they can actually do some of the teeth stuff without an insane amount of lab time).
Conclusion:
Not worth. While some of this is kind of justified (After all most legacy characters got some toning down), it is WAAAAAY too much.
The problem with old Joker was that his low mobility made it difficult to get started and that a LOT of things low profiled gun meaning he couldn't counter zone. Once he did get in he was a monster.
Now the problem with IJ2 Joker is that while slightly more mobile (emphasis on slightly), he lost the tools he needed to open people up and get started, as well as all of the tools that made it scary when he got in.
Give me back IGAU Joker with the MB dash mechanic and we might just have a good character.
PS:
To everyone who tells us to stop crying over the teeth nerfs because he shouldn't have a block infinite, I agree with half of that sentence. Block infinites are dumb... so nerf F23 startup or blockstun. Problem solved WITHOUT destroying the character's offense in the process.
Running crowbar is a gimmick. MB B3 and his entire "Buff" is gone and full combo punished.
MB Gun is only marginally more useful than Lex's MB mine in IGAU.
Loss of flower means no more wakeup, loss of his main/best armor breaking tool (D2>Flower was amazing for anti-armor purposes) and his pressure now has holes, as the threat of flower was how you got opponents to block teeth and start mixups.
That's far from all of it though:
-OTGs are gone.
-Fast restands are gone.
-J2 got EXTREMELY nerfed.
-D2 got nerfed.
-212 got nerfed.
-213 got nerfed and is no longer a HKD.
-32 and 323 got nerfed.
-Teeth knockback decay was increased, meaning less teeth per combo, AKA less meter gain and damage. The damage is somewhat offset by moves in general seeming to hit harder though.
-Special inputs were changed for no reason (Less of a nerf and more of something that fucks with muscle memory).
-Mechanic changes have made all instant overheads mids, meaning he lost IA J2>11>Can for full combo, and therefore opponents have no reason to block high. These same mechanic changes actually make his level 3 trait useless since his aerials count as mid for almost the entirety of his jump when he's in it.
-Could be wrong but the range on J3 feels smaller.
-Crowbar lost a LOT of hitstun. Like more than half of what it used to have, especially on the MB version. Not really a reason to MB it now other than because it looks cool.
-Restand resets are gone since Flower is gone.
Things he gained:
-Better forward dash
-Better walk speed
-Better trait (Although barely... it still sucks)
-Gun is stronger. Maybe that's because less characters low profile it by moving now. I'm seeing people in this thread say his zoning got weaker; I 100% disagree. It's all he currently has going for him.
-Execution requirement is much lower (Also might be why people think he's better now.... they can actually do some of the teeth stuff without an insane amount of lab time).
Conclusion:
Not worth. While some of this is kind of justified (After all most legacy characters got some toning down), it is WAAAAAY too much.
The problem with old Joker was that his low mobility made it difficult to get started and that a LOT of things low profiled gun meaning he couldn't counter zone. Once he did get in he was a monster.
Now the problem with IJ2 Joker is that while slightly more mobile (emphasis on slightly), he lost the tools he needed to open people up and get started, as well as all of the tools that made it scary when he got in.
Give me back IGAU Joker with the MB dash mechanic and we might just have a good character.
PS:
To everyone who tells us to stop crying over the teeth nerfs because he shouldn't have a block infinite, I agree with half of that sentence. Block infinites are dumb... so nerf F23 startup or blockstun. Problem solved WITHOUT destroying the character's offense in the process.
i see no high risk high reward.
. im still not convinced hes trash though, the game is super-young and i hope you guys keep up the labbing. a pixel on the screen might change a lot. on a side note, i have quite a lot of joker matchup experience from igau, i found him most annoying when he went some kind of footsie/keepaway game with the occasional setup explosions.