Why Sub Zero Should Not Be Nerfed. The GrandMaster Speaks.

[santanabar]

that whole thing "you can flawless block f4" was kinda cringy to watch

 

[DarkSado]

Buff his damage lol

Yo this was the biggest LULZ when I read that.

 

[Endeavor]

Seems like there is a lot of backlash about this whole vortex 50/50 thing. In MKX the ENTIRE game was based around 50/50s and people didnt think it was a problem, and a decent portion of those 50/50s were safe. Hell in MKX Sub could outright make his 50/50 safe in the corner with the right spacing. it seems that a lot of people are forgetting that it is high risk as well as high reward. if you block the overhead into EX iceball you can FULL COMBO PUNISH him. I will say that it is hard to do, however I also remember when people complained about earth shaker and then people learned how to fuzzy guard it and we never heard about it again. Tom is showing you your options to get out of the situations they might not be ideal there is no such thing as having too much knowledge. That being said the flawless blocking F4 is kind whatever He does the overhead and he is dead. He goes low and he is safe the string is negative on block and he has to give up his offense. Now before everyone's rectum explodes I play him and I ABSOLUTELY HATE DoW. I fucking despise it, and wish that it had never been born. I hate that variation so much that when you pick it I wish your hands would explode and you be forced to watch your flesh burn!!!! But even then my personal hate for DoW aside I don't want to see the people who like that mix up and that MKX style of play for subzero lose there character, but I think what would make it better or rather slightly easier to deal with would be these changes:

• Increase the damage scaling of EX iceball: less damage means less incentive to loop you.
• Nerf the frame advantage of F4 to +2: A lot less of a brain dead situation for the opponent to have to deal but keeps the move still relatively good.
• Leave F4 the same but increase the push back: means the move is less viable in open space.
• Nerf the frame advantage of s2.

Now this last nerf is something is just like if they did it would be bad for Thin Ice but might be bad for DoW cause although it would take some practice you could train yourself to react to this

- increase the start up of f2 to 22 frames.

But that would probably be the worst case scenario since what makes the variation good is it mix up, to lose that means the variation is pretty bad and there are some people (may they rot in the firey pit of Hades for all eternity) that actually like constant mix up and they shouldnt lose that option just casue its strong for right now. However those are just my personal thoughts. I would also be ok if they took away shoulder and only left his with ex iceball as well. As that would also mirror idea that he would take over all less damage I forget who said that above, I think it was RM REE that said it but that would also sit well with me.

 

[Moms4lif3]

Taking away his shoulder? Come on, he already has only two specials THAT is literally the way to make a character bland as hell, ugh

 

[Endeavor]

Taking away his shoulder? Come on, he already has only two specials THAT is literally the way to make a character bland as hell, ugh

Its just to appease all the "OMG SUBZERO MUST DIE" people in the thread. But even then as means to tone him down, while still letting him mix up it wouldnt be that unreasonable plus he would get slide back by default. And according to most people he isnt that interesting to play no matter what hes doing.

 

[Tanno]

The fear is real.

Only for the reason that this nerf panic exists he should be nerfed.

Make him feel the a-list pain.

Ok watched the entire thing, it's full of crap as I thought.

99% of the time i'm gonna flawless block this -> misses 5 flawless blocks. Good luck doing that with 10% life in the tournament bub. Nerf that shit.

Then about the mixup, he spent the entire video "if he delays it, if he does that, if he does that". Brah, that's called GUESSING. It's called a MIXup and it is there.
The problem is not that it is there, the problem is that it is SAFE. He doesn't do overhead in ice ball, he does the kicks. As many times as it takes, you still die.
If you guess one right, TOUGH luck. Back in the blender.

Everyone with a mixup should have one option -20 or more. The balanced mixup chars in the game have this. He guesses your mixup, YOU EAT 30% period.

That is the problem here and he mentions none of that, obviously.

Nerf that piece of crap character back to mid tier.
And yes, along with erron, obviously.

You main Johnny, right? You have another ice problem to deal with.

 

[Error404]

Nobody needs to be nerfed so early.

 

[M.D.]

Lmao nice rant based on shit you don't know

Go lab things for a change and git gud

Just doing the exact same thing ignorants did to A-list in mkx

 

[Moms4lif3]

Its just to appease all the "OMG SUBZERO MUST DIE" people in the thread. But even then as means to tone him down, while still letting him mix up it wouldnt be that unreasonable plus he would get slide back by default. And according to most people he isnt that interesting to play no matter what hes doing.

Ah ok, if it gave him back slide I wouldn’t care whatsoever ^^ I actually really like sub’s neutral game, he never appealed to me in X in that way, he just had cool looking broken clone combos I really hope NRS will not try to appease people who clearly do not want to influence the meta in a positive way, but nerf the hell out of characters they don’t like fighting. I think that’s what happened to D’Vorah.

 

[RM Ree]

Just doing the exact same thing ignorants did to A-list in mkx

Didn’t A-List Johnny has jailing pressure with his cancels?

 

[SaSSolino]

Nobody needs to be nerfed so early.

Besides Erron Black. He needs to be destroyed.

 

[Versa]

It's honestly shameful to cry about nerfs for a game that isn't even 2 weeks old yet. Absolutely ridiculous.

ESPECIALLY when ya'll are asking for more options via custom variations. Do you HONESTLY believe that will make the game more balanced?

 

[M.D.]

Didn’t A-List Johnny has jailing pressure with his cancels?

Spoiler: Offtopic

He had gaps and fake pressure, could be backdashed and armored in most of them. However everyone complained he is broken even though he didn't even place at tournaments and alien/triborg and actual top tiers were dominating, so he got nerfed so hard and ONLY him, as dragon fire liu kang and scorpion kept their jailing pressure absolutely intact while a-list got some idiotic variable blockstun if the move was blocked or hit, making every cancel a gamble for you because you didn't know if the opponent would block or not. Something horrendous which ruined the caracter, while Liu Kang vaporized everyone with the exact same pressure and nobody cared.

 

[NeonGroovyGator]

As much as I dislike nerfing stuff that isn't absolutely gamebreaking this soon, it upsets me that some people don't seem to object too much to this game having safe 50/50s. I don't want whoever hits first wins 50/50 fiesta again, and no, making the game "more fun" this way will probably not extend its lifespan.

 

[Wrath0594]

Watched the vid, don't feel like reading through the whole thread, but I'll say this. I don't think SZ needs nerfs. I think the only reasonable request would be slightly slower travel time on iceball, so it doesn't trade as freely. Ok, now I'm reading some of these posts and the proposed nerfs that are getting likes are batshit insane. Yall need to do some labwork.

The big difference between SZ's 50/50 and MKX 50/50's is that if he wants the full combo- overhead amp iceball or low iceball, it's unsafe. It's -15. That's assuming it is a koin flip and you didn't know the counterplay shown in the video. It's like Kenjutsu Kenshi, if the opponent guesses correctly, they are appropriately rewarded. That's the important distinction between this and Cassie using ex flip to make her 50/50 safe.

Videos like this are what we need more of. People exploring counterplay before calling for buffs and nerfs.

 

[Wrath0594]

Nobody needs to be nerfed so early.

I'd argue Scorpion, Erron, and Geras DEFINITELY do. They've got tools that are obviously overtuned. We can obviously take away Scorp tele amp on block. Erron, prolly add a few frames to his OH boot. Idk what to change about the rest of his kit. Prolly take away the OH on his pistol whip string so you don't have to worry about that in addition to slide/gun cancel mixups. And Geras... Less + frames? More gaps. Make his command grab high, not mid. Definitely do something with sand trap.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

I'd argue Scorpion, Erron, and Geras DEFINITELY do. They've got tools that are obviously overtuned. We can obviously take away Scorp tele amp on block. Erron, prolly add a few frames to his OH boot. Idk what to change about the rest of his kit. Prolly take away the OH on his pistol whip string so you don't have to worry about that in addition to slide/gun cancel mixups. And Geras... Less + frames? More gaps. Make his command grab high, not mid. Definitely do something with sand trap.

I think the key is though that even if you suspect a character needs nerfs, you really have to wait to see how things play out on the whole. There are numerous cases of things being worse then were thought, better than were thought, players finding workarounds for certain things as the meta evolves, etc.

So even if you want to modify a character, to know how much and what exactly to do to them usually takes a bit of time.

 

[Wrath0594]

I think the key is though that even if you suspect a character needs nerfs, you really have to wait to see how things play out on the whole. There are numerous cases of things being worse then were thought, better than were thought, players finding workarounds for certain things as the meta evolves, etc.

So even if you want to modify a character, to know how much and what exactly to do to them usually takes a bit of time.

Oh, for sure! People always jump the gun. Vids like this are what we need-throrough exploration. My point was more about how it goes both ways. There’ll always be “it’s too soon” people no matter how broken somethting is. Someone could have a 1 frame unblockable long range mid combo starter, and you’d still have assholes saying “it’s too soon to nerf it.”

I’m generally on the “let the game breathe” side of things. I thought a lot of the MKX changes were knee jerk reactions and they should’ve waited. But at the same time, there are people who intentionally overcomplicate things. Some of these characters have had issues since beta.

 

[DomShinobi]

Some characters need significant buffs in startups, recovery and dmg location. Geras needs some worse recovery frames on his bread and butter specials thats about it.

 

[Perk]

Some characters need significant buffs in startups, recovery and dmg location. Geras needs some worse recovery frames on his bread and butter specials thats about it.

this is definitely the smartest rout. Sometimes all they need is a Fram or two +/-. I'd just hate to see the SFV nerf rout where they gutted a handful of characters in Season 1 where they really didn't need much more than time to learn how to deal with them. I think this game is super fun, and I'm interested to see how things go from here.

 

[Error404]

The only things that needs changing so early, are the ones that obviously shouldn't be happening.Characters going under attacks while crouch blocking is the only thing that has to go.

 

[sIllverback]

Just remove Ice Ball

/s

 

[Tom Brady]

that whole thing "you can flawless block f4" was kinda cringy to watch

you realize i did that without even looking at the screen. want me to make a vid of me flawless blocking 100 f4s in a row?

 

[santanabar]

you realize i did that without even looking at the screen. want me to make a vid of me flawless blocking 100 f4s in a row?

Dude, in practice mode when you are expecting a move of course is 1 million times easier. If we record any move and try what you did, we can even flawless block 6 frames pokes consistently. Doing that in a game is a whole new story, if you want to make a point, post a video of you flawless blocking every time similar moves, like erron f4 (26 frames), scorpion b3 (27 frames) or sure, subs f4, but in a real game.

 

[Aye]

This game should not be touched until after EVO at the absolute earliest, unless some stupid infinite shit is found or it's bug fixing. No reactionary balance changes to anyone. Let the game fucking breathe and see how high level tournament play pans out.

If EVO is anything like the recent tournaments, it's going to be Geras VS Geras with a small side dish of Erron Black. You want to talk nerfs, you best be starting with those two, and after EVO is over.