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Johnny Cage's Nerfs Don't Make Sense

HiddenSelectCounterPick

Crossplay Username: PlayingNeutral
Not sure about Geras being far more egregious that Johnny Cage. Maybe a couple patches ago, but at it stood just before Aftermath, JC is one of the simplest characters to dominate with, and that is evidenced in the results of months worth of tournaments.

Yes Sand Trap is extremely annoying, and Geras is still good, but it's Cage that has been causing far more damage both online and offline since Geras was double-nerfed.
Factual; he's top 3 easiest character to pick up in the game.
 
Johnny is good for the wrong reasons; a portion of his kit is very strong to the point they felt they needed to nerf it, yet the rest of his kit is a total mess.
Doesn't even matter what character we're talking about, nobody should have dead KBs. NOBODY.

I also agree that his forceball whiffs make no sense, especially when they're fixing a lot of other poor hitboxes, again we can mention Raiden here. It's as though they want them to whiff at this point.
 

Lt. Boxy Angelman

I WILL EAT THIS GAME
The balance of this game continues to be dictated by the characters that the devs WANT to be good, rather than what makes sense for the overall balance of the game and what's fair for every character's player base. This all just makes it look even more like Johnny Cage is not in his makers' favor, and it looked that way BEFORE he got nerfed. He's had the same consistent and across-the-board problems since DAY ONE, and not only have they not been addressed at all, but now he's lost what little good he had going for him, for no logical reason, for the second game in a row.

Meanwhile, look at the rest of the roster.
-Jacqui's only major change was over Upgraded, which was BONKERS upon initial release, and she's still almost certainly #1 in the game. But Cage can't have his moveset work like it's actually supposed to.
-Shao Kahn, Raiden, and V3 Kollector, who were all regarded to be bottom of the totem pole pre-Aftermath, are ALL legitimate contenders now. But Cage? Nope.
-And then, there's Kitana. For the second game in a row, Kitana has gone from middle of the pack to getting more buffs than I can count, on top of already having a female hitbox, excellent projectiles across all three variations, more than one viable KB, AND now, an armor-breaking move that isn't total trash. She was given the literal royal treatment, while Johnny Cage loses some of his most important assets, and his most prominent and serious problems go completely unaddressed after more than a year, while everyone else who needed help has gotten it.

If I were a Cage player, I would've given up on this game and put everyone from 16 Bit to Paulo and down the line on blast by now, because the bias here feels so thick that you could cut it with a knife. As the OP states, it makes zero sense. And for all the things that have been changed and gotten right, and the effort that's being made to improve the meta, it's a damn shame. It makes me doubt the entire balance process and wonder how much the personal influence of QA and the top players in their ears have over how things play out. It's the MK equivalent of the wrestling booker putting the title on whoever the hell they please, instead of giving everyone in the locker room even footing to please the crowd and earn their spot.

Tl;Dr: They should do what's good for the entire game instead of what THEY want to be good for the entire game. Letting an entire character swing in the indifferent wind for OVER A YEAR, especially one as well-recognized as Johnny Cage, while others are repeatedly pushed to the top and then left untouched, is the kind of thing that makes people bail on your franchise and never come back. But that's me :coffee: .
 
The balance of this game continues to be dictated by the characters that the devs WANT to be good, rather than what makes sense for the overall balance of the game and what's fair for every character's player base. This all just makes it look even more like Johnny Cage is not in his makers' favor, and it looked that way BEFORE he got nerfed. He's had the same consistent and across-the-board problems since DAY ONE, and not only have they not been addressed at all, but now he's lost what little good he had going for him, for no logical reason, for the second game in a row.

Meanwhile, look at the rest of the roster.
-Jacqui's only major change was over Upgraded, which was BONKERS upon initial release, and she's still almost certainly #1 in the game. But Cage can't have his moveset work like it's actually supposed to.
-Shao Kahn, Raiden, and V3 Kollector, who were all regarded to be bottom of the totem pole pre-Aftermath, are ALL legitimate contenders now. But Cage? Nope.
-And then, there's Kitana. For the second game in a row, Kitana has gone from middle of the pack to getting more buffs than I can count, on top of already having a female hitbox, excellent projectiles across all three variations, more than one viable KB, AND now, an armor-breaking move that isn't total trash. She was given the literal royal treatment, while Johnny Cage loses some of his most important assets, and his most prominent and serious problems go completely unaddressed after more than a year, while everyone else who needed help has gotten it.

If I were a Cage player, I would've given up on this game and put everyone from 16 Bit to Paulo and down the line on blast by now, because the bias here feels so thick that you could cut it with a knife. As the OP states, it makes zero sense. And for all the things that have been changed and gotten right, and the effort that's being made to improve the meta, it's a damn shame. It makes me doubt the entire balance process and wonder how much the personal influence of QA and the top players in their ears have over how things play out. It's the MK equivalent of the wrestling booker putting the title on whoever the hell they please, instead of giving everyone in the locker room even footing to please the crowd and earn their spot.

Tl;Dr: They should do what's good for the entire game instead of what THEY want to be good for the entire game. Letting an entire character swing in the indifferent wind for OVER A YEAR, especially one as well-recognized as Johnny Cage, while others are repeatedly pushed to the top and then left untouched, is the kind of thing that makes people bail on your franchise and never come back. But that's me :coffee: .
Uh oh criticizing the game? You better turn off your notifications or have your ignore button ready bro, they are about to drag and troll the shit out of you lol.
 

M2Dave

Zoning Master
-And then, there's Kitana. For the second game in a row, Kitana has gone from middle of the pack to getting more buffs than I can count, on top of already having a female hitbox, excellent projectiles across all three variations, more than one viable KB, AND now, an armor-breaking move that isn't total trash. She was given the literal royal treatment, while Johnny Cage loses some of his most important assets, and his most prominent and serious problems go completely unaddressed after more than a year, while everyone else who needed help has gotten it.
Kitana was not in the "middle of the pack" on release day. LOL. She was awful. For example, there was no forward version of the razors in Highborn so she could not use them in strings and combos. Even after NRS added the forward version, the razors spun differently depending on the side you were facing which caused random whiffing on block and hit. Release day Kitana was arguably as bad as release day Shinnok.
 
Hey atleast arent a scorpion main and your mids get low profiled. Imagine actually doing the right thing and still getting hit bc the opponent mashed d4, d3 and bc their hitbox is low your mids just dont connect after certain strings or situations. V3 scorpion has only one plus frame on block off of misery blade and it leaves him at +1. Honestly I think NRS just doesn't want certain characters to play the game. They could easily see what the biggest gripes with the game are and fix them but instead they just do things that dont make sense
 

Lt. Boxy Angelman

I WILL EAT THIS GAME
Uh oh criticizing the game? You better turn off your notifications or have your ignore button ready bro, they are about to drag and troll the shit out of you lol.
I believe it. I wish them the best of luck. I'm not saying all that because I hate the game; I love MK way too much not to call bullshit when I see it, because I want it to be the best it can be. And it's been improved by a LOT, but the outstanding flaws are pretty damning.

Kitana was not in the "middle of the pack" on release day. LOL. She was awful. For example, there was no forward version of the razors in Highborn so she could not use them in strings and combos. Even after NRS added the forward version, the razors spun differently depending on the side you were facing which caused random whiffing on block and hit. Release day Kitana was arguably as bad as release day Shinnok.
That's totally fair. And she was just as bad at the start of MKX, if I remember right. But the amount of attention she's gotten while Cage's fundamental problems have been blown off and knocked down is ridiculous, and it isn't even the first time it's happened. It's not personal to me, because I'm a Noob main and I don't play as much as I used to, but it's a glaring problem that bothered me even when Outtake was still ridiculous.

And I don't mind Kitana being top tier at all. I love Kitana, even without Fan juggle combos. I just don't understand why certain characters like her and Jacqui stay getting pushed to the moon, while Cage is fundamentally unable to play the game as intended, and it took Kahn and Raiden a whole year to become viable. That bugs the shit out of me.
 
I really don't see how Kitana is top tier.
She's alright and that's it.
I swear I have never seen anyone complain about Kitana and never lost to one and thought in practice mode afterwards "Damn you can't lab that, it's bullshit!"

Been thinking about learning her as I think she does the throw/strike mixup better than Scorp and has an insane jump kick.

Also I don't know why they body Johnny's plus frames while leaving his whiffing issues alone and instead making 124 duckable and reduce pushback on block. As he has a safe option off 12 and special cancels to blow ducks up, I think that would've been a sensible change.
I mean if you can condition people to block 124 and there's counter play I think you deserve those +6.

The effort on the balance changes is abysmal and makes no sense at all.

I also think it's trash that you can't give constructive feedback anywhere, as I doubt anyone at NRS is reading this forum, MK reddit is full all cosplay and fanart threads and Twitter is a piece of shit with its character limit.
 
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Wigy

There it is...
No clue why v1 and v2 got nerfed. Neither are as good as the rest of the top tier.

also cage is probably the most honest S tier this game has had. Its all reads and movement, this game is meant to be neutral and he just plays that very well. Hes stupid in the corner but most characters have their own brand of stupidity there.

honestly 343 getting nerfed was just lol.

v3 could have used something nerf wise but idk what.

notice some of the same people who said vanilla jacqui was fine and to lab it, in here shitting on cage community for downplaying. From what ive seen cage players on here have all said hes top tier though some took a while to come across to that idea as he suddenly went from mid tier to S tier with outtake.

if you think the balance patch was fairly done to the S tier you’re smoking crack or play jacqui.
 

John_NX

Your circumstances are dire!
Honestly, he's another victim of the braindead balancing team. If you have noticed for the past year, they've been nerfing/buffing characters the wrong way.
Let's start:
Kitana, everyone (including me) has and is complaining about her dial-in slow mids and pokes and her poor damage. What does she get? Some fixes to her variations that should have been BASE and her core kit was never touched. Didn't solve the real issues with the character.

Skarlet, everyone complained about her gaps, her mediocre damage, bad KB's. What does she get? A little bit more safety and more hit advantage on her B2. Completely ignored her real issues.

Jade, everyone complains about this character on a casual level because they have no idea how to deal with her. However, on a high level Jade is simply too hard to work with. Never touched the real issues with the character and gave her BS here and there that are not useful.

Raiden, although I never thought that he was that bad, I can't believe it took them OVER A YEAR to actually give him some good things. Although I'm not sure how good the recent buffs are, so I can't really say anything more.

Geras, everyone complained about the braindead damage, sandtrap, KBs. What did he get? A gap to his string (that he can pretty much always make safe with the punch), altered sand trap KB requirement. Never touched the real issues that made him AND STILL MAKE HIM a pain in the @$$ to fight. Also why does he still have a 34% KB punish????

Johnny, this character in my opinion was just annoying. Top tier for sure but much more honest than the other top tiers. I do agree with his changes to his + frames, although as many people stated here, he didn't get anything in return. Why not let him get plus frames with his projectiles? That would be fair considering he spends a bar for it. Simply took away too much without giving anything back.

In conclusion, I have a strong belief that the balancing team has no idea how to play this game or just suck hard at it (or against certain characters).
 
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I believe it. I wish them the best of luck. I'm not saying all that because I hate the game; I love MK way too much not to call bullshit when I see it, because I want it to be the best it can be. And it's been improved by a LOT, but the outstanding flaws are pretty damning.



That's totally fair. And she was just as bad at the start of MKX, if I remember right. But the amount of attention she's gotten while Cage's fundamental problems have been blown off and knocked down is ridiculous, and it isn't even the first time it's happened. It's not personal to me, because I'm a Noob main and I don't play as much as I used to, but it's a glaring problem that bothered me even when Outtake was still ridiculous.

And I don't mind Kitana being top tier at all. I love Kitana, even without Fan juggle combos. I just don't understand why certain characters like her and Jacqui stay getting pushed to the moon, while Cage is fundamentally unable to play the game as intended, and it took Kahn and Raiden a whole year to become viable. That bugs the shit out of me.
Well to totally be fair Kitana was so busted when the game first came out. It took a lot of buffs to get her to the point of being mid tier. She is not top tier because she doesn't have the normals/ pokes to compete with others.
 
Well to totally be fair Kitana was so busted when the game first came out. It took a lot of buffs to get her to the point of being mid tier. She is not top tier because she doesn't have the normals/ pokes to compete with others.
Bruh I went to to the lab to mess around and I saw kitana d1 I was like wtf lol, good range but 9 frames the hell is that
 

mrapchem

Noob
Honestly, he's another victim of the braindead balancing team. If you have noticed for the past year, they've been nerfing/buffing characters the wrong way.
Let's start:
Kitana, everyone (including me) has and is complaining about her dial-in slow mids and pokes and her poor damage. What does she get? Some fixes to her variations that should have been BASE and her core kit was never touched. Didn't solve the real issues with the character.

Skarlet, everyone complained about her gaps, her mediocre damage, bad KB's. What does she get? A little bit more safety and more hit advantage on her B2. Completely ignored her real issues.

Jade, everyone complains about this character on a casual level because they have no idea how to deal with her. However, on a high level Jade is simply too hard to work with. Never touched the real issues with the character and gave her BS here and there that are not useful.

Raiden, although I never thought that he was that bad, I can't believe it took them OVER A YEAR to actually give him some good things. Although I'm not sure how good the recent buffs are, so I can't really say anything more.

Geras, everyone complained about the braindead damage, sandtrap, KBs. What did he get? A gap to his string (that he can pretty much always make safe with the punch), altered sand trap KB requirement. Never touched the real issues that made him AND STILL MAKE HIM a pain in the @$$ to fight. Also why does he still have a 34% KB punish????

Johnny, this character in my opinion was just annoying. Top tier for sure but much more honest than the other top tiers. I do agree with his changes to his + frames, although as many people stated here, he didn't get anything in return. Why not let him get plus frames with his projectiles? That would be fair considering he spends a bar for it. Simply took away too much without giving anything back.

In conclusion, I have a strong belief that the balancing team has no idea how to play this game or just suck hard at it (or against certain characters).
Honestly, I have noticed that the balance team, though much more careful and passive than in previous titles, seems to have a habit of changing characters in ways that don't make sense.

Instead of giving her some more recovery frames on her zoning, NRS took Sonya's single launching special and stopped her from being able to launch with it, limiting her combo potential and making her less fun to play.

Instead of merely stopping the amplified teleport from coming out on block (like Shao Kahn's amplify), NRS made Scorpion's teleport a high and until recently, allowed him to languish in mediocrity.

You listed some of the other main examples of the same trend. NRS needs to fix JC and fix all these other characters too.
 

mrapchem

Noob
Is there even a difference between +1 and +6 considering the push back on those strings? Maybe in the corner where they can't dash back.
There's a massive difference, especially in the corner. Before, it was all but impossible to counter-poke Cage after a 124, 34U3 or Ex-Straight Forceball, which was the key to his pressure. The opponent could always back-dash, or duck on a read though. Now, he has no pressure whatsoever - a big part of his offense - with nothing else to compensate. It's a damn shame.
 

M2Dave

Zoning Master
That's totally fair. And she was just as bad at the start of MKX, if I remember right. But the amount of attention she's gotten while Cage's fundamental problems have been blown off and knocked down is ridiculous, and it isn't even the first time it's happened. It's not personal to me, because I'm a Noob main and I don't play as much as I used to, but it's a glaring problem that bothered me even when Outtake was still ridiculous.
I am genuinely unsure what your argument even consists of. If you are referring to Johnny Cage's hitbox issues and inconsistencies, everyone agrees with you. In fact, my post on the subject is in this very thread here. The reality is that Outtake was super top tier for like six months. There were no "fundamental problems", at least not in Outtake, that needed to be addressed.
 

mrapchem

Noob
I am genuinely unsure what your argument even consists of. If you are referring to Johnny Cage's hitbox issues and inconsistencies, everyone agrees with you. In fact, my post on the subject is in this very thread here. The reality is that Outtake was super top tier for like six months. There were no "fundamental problems", at least not in Outtake, that needed to be addressed.
If I'm reading correctly, it looks like his issue is the fact that NRS seems to have a habit of picking the game's winners and losers, fixing the issues of the winners, or worse yet, buffing them in silly ways and then ignoring the issues of the game's losers.

I believe we all agree that NRS should be fixing everyone's issues, no matter who the character is and not letting them suck for months and months on end.
 

M2Dave

Zoning Master
If I'm reading correctly, it looks like his issue is the fact that NRS seems to have a habit of picking the game's winners and losers, fixing the issues of the winners, or worse yet, buffing them in silly ways and then ignoring the issues of the game's losers.

I believe we all agree that NRS should be fixing everyone's issues, no matter who the character is and not letting them suck for months and months on end.
If NRS had fixed the hitbox issues on Show Stopper's force balls after introducing Outtake, you know very well what the community's reaction would be. People would complain that Johnny Cage has two top tier variations while their character was ignored and/or received insufficient buffs. The reality is that the balancing process is subtle and complex, and NRS developers usually get blown up no matter what they do.

I do agree that Johnny Cage was arguably over-normalized. Now more than ever before would be a good time to fix the force balls in Show Stopper.
 

Syzoth

The last Saurian from Zaterra - Syzoth - Reptile
Not sure about Geras being far more egregious that Johnny Cage. Maybe a couple patches ago, but at it stood just before Aftermath, JC is one of the simplest characters to dominate with, and that is evidenced in the results of months worth of tournaments.

Yes Sand Trap is extremely annoying, and Geras is still good, but it's Cage that has been causing far more damage both online and offline since Geras was double-nerfed.
Just to elaborate Geras has been nerfed 5 times that I'm aware of and I haven't been nearly as active as I was in MKX.

He's still S tier or A tier. But he's not as strong as he once was.
 
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Lt. Boxy Angelman

I WILL EAT THIS GAME
I am genuinely unsure what your argument even consists of. If you are referring to Johnny Cage's hitbox issues and inconsistencies, everyone agrees with you. In fact, my post on the subject is in this very thread here. The reality is that Outtake was super top tier for like six months. There were no "fundamental problems", at least not in Outtake, that needed to be addressed.
I agree. I mean specifically the inconsistencies going untouched the entirety of the game. Outtake was bananas.
 

mrapchem

Noob
Just to elaborate Geras has nerfed 5 times that I'm aware of and I haven't been nearly as active as I was in MKX.

He's still S tier or A tier. But he's not as strong as he once was.
You are correct - Geras has indeed been nerfed multiple times. However, he has mostly been nerfed in either ineffective or unnecessary ways. And now, with his armor-breaking Sand Trap, he's definitely been buffed, which he does not need.
 

mrapchem

Noob
Hey guys, readed last pages of the cage forum, check this out and let me know what u think.
I posted this in main thread, read and tell me what u think guys.
I can get behind most of these changes, with the exception of F44 and B34D3 being special cancellable. We don't need Cage to be close to broken; we just want him to be complete and without whiffs and other inconsistencies.

But besides that, I'd be quite interested in playing a JC with those changes.
 

Mandolore1123

Man of Science Who Wields the Living Lightning
Johnny is good for the wrong reasons; a portion of his kit is very strong to the point they felt they needed to nerf it, yet the rest of his kit is a total mess.
Doesn't even matter what character we're talking about, nobody should have dead KBs. NOBODY.

I also agree that his forceball whiffs make no sense, especially when they're fixing a lot of other poor hitboxes, again we can mention Raiden here. It's as though they want them to whiff at this point.
I see Raiden being mentioned a few times and it's regarding the string that's +6. While having anything that's so plus is definitely a good thing, I'd like to clear something up. There's a huge gap between the S32 and the last hit 1 (big enough to full combo punish), and while Raiden can stagger the string (it's only -3), the most important thing is that S3 has an absolutely terrible hit-box, and whiffs on crouch blocking opponents at anywhere other than super point blank, this coupled with the fact that it's 11f (a just frame jail from his D3) means that it's extremely unlikely that Raiden will be able to use this string without getting poked out due to the large interval between hits. Not to mention on small hurt-box characters it is still impossible to really jail this normal from pokes or even from his mids on hit because of the pushback and the bad hit-box.

I'm not going to comment on Johnny's nerfs, I just wanted to clear this up in case people think Raiden getting a +6 string is the biggest deal in the world.