Alright, this is a question for people who, like me, understand the game pretty well, but definitely consider themselves casuals. I'm one of those guys who will get to Demi-God and win about 60% of their matches along the way, and once I get to Demi-God, I'm like 50-50. So, if that describes you, this question is for you. Interested in other perspectives, as well, but hope to hear from others like me the most.
Question first, then general reasoning. I've played MK11 and MK1. Within the last two NRS games, I think Omni-Man might be the most broken at the skill level I'm talking about.
Do people agree?
I know every character is hard to deal with when they first come out. This is different -- I don't think there's a character from either of the last two games that can more thoroughly and completely ignore neutral and cheese people for significant damage with such minimal execiution. And, as long as they don't nerf Lao hat, it feels completely sustainable for the life of the game. Like, I can lab til the cows come home, but:
- He's 30-35% meterless into a +40 Lao hat setup on knockdown for a hard-to-blockable jump-in on every hit if he wants to be.
- He's holding Lao hat and doing Air-BF4 into a full-screen hard-to-blockable.
- He's air-dashing back to full-screen in a microsecond any time he doesn't want to be near me.
- He's going into stance at full screen with a life lead, eliminating projectiles and teleporting behind me any time he wants as I close the distance.
- He's smashing me in the face with a 12-frame half-screen advancing armored attack when I try to close distance.
- He's got a 2-hit, 14-frame low attack that negates armor on wakeup, and, when you put Lao hat behind it, is either plus on block or does 13% on hit.
- He's got a 17-frame advancing mid string that you can mindlessly put Lao hat behind, because it somehow still connects for a combo even after the Hat hits.
- All his damage is meterless so he's always got Breaker ready if you hit him.
There's lots of other more "regular" good stuff in his buttons and specials, but the bullets here are the pure cheese. My controller is going through a window soon. Interested to hear what people think.
I'm not one bit scared of Omni-Man anymore. At first I was scared because of the f neutral tools. But all of them are punishable unless Lao is charged.
His B11 has a duckable high if you crouch block and you should be fuzzying low to overhead.
His 222 is flawless block punishable.
His 12 has a Armor gap.
His EX and regular Vitramite Stance is very punishable.
You need to go in practice and beat it into muscle memory, but his HTBs are all overhead to low because that's how they are safe. They have to time it 4 frames apart or second hit turns into a mid that's auto blocked and a 4 Frame HTB is easy to fuzzy and that's why you see pros blocking the HTBs nearly every time. The sky drop with Lao hitting after is shutdown with UpBlock because not only does it make it punishable if no Kameo to make it plus but it completely stops all following buttons after for 30+ frames.
If you are scouting Vitramite Stance into F+R2 the teleport behind, you can punish with hit/throw mix or just 50/50. Omni-Man is far less likely to EX Stance into teleport behind.
EX Vitramite Stance is punishable by several specials, lows and jump ins.
He is honestly top of mid tier and Sonics new Tier list validates my placement.
He's clearly a good character but he has counterplay.
Man... Not to be pessimistic, but Omni-Man should be the LEAST of your concerns with Sindel running around. I'll play 5000 "neutral skip: the character" before I face one high level Sindel with her mind numbing vortex. Talk about skill less... That bitch can zone you for days and then set you up for a legitimate 50/50 that can't be armored. Guess wrong twice and you lose. Fuck that shit
Just block low to overhead with fuzzy and you beat her Vortex HTB.
She can't land overhead to low with JIP's 1 or 2 because of the timing to cover all wakeup options.
Only way she can land overhead first is JIK and that completely shuts down her juggle, F43 doesn't pop up after and it's way harder to combo after it at the timing to cover wakeup options, you have to wavedash into F1xxBF2 wavedash F1xxFlipkick for 20%ish F4 won't connect. The reason she can Vortex with JIP is the F4 ender and the time she keeps them juggled which regens another Charged Lao Hat in time to JIP again.
They can't delete your life if they overhead to low with JIK so just low to overhead, it's a 4 Frame HTB so not hard to fuzzy.
Just lab it into muscle memory like any punish combo.
I hope they add a Regen delay to Charged Low hat, somewhere around 5 seconds so it can't be Vortexed like Dragon, Sonic and Xombat are asking for.
I honestly don't need it and for me it's not that strong unless opponent doesn't fuzzy or doesn't know her options on it.
I hope I explained it right:
I honestly think her neutral HTB is harder to deal with (non vortex) because I can hold Lao hat after JIP or let hat hit before JIP for a low to overhead/overhead to low true 50/50 HTB. There's options against it but most players freeze up when they see Lao Hat charging. But that's an HTB every character has with Jump in+ charged hat.
I'm not saying The JIP HTB Vortex isn't strong but if they are doing it perfectly to stuff every wakeup option but delay wakeup beating backdash, D2, Jump, Armor WU then you can absolutely Fuzzy Guard it. But they can add many layers by waiting with float and even empty jump into throw where they are not covering wakeup options and not making it a actual Vortex that covers all wakeup options. Just the threat of it being there allows these layers.
But most God to Demi God players online will try to do the low to overhead JIP HTB that stuffs wakeups because they are wanting to do the perfect timing at least all the ones I've played and it got me out of it a couple times a match which got me enough to win those matches.
I can do very similar setups with Rain, Geras and a few others in the corner that do loop HTBs. Rain has one you set pool behind them just enough that you can throw them back into whirlpool for launch and if you hit them with any string it hits them into the low whirlpool.
I can backdash a slightly different distance to make the whirlpool look behind them but actually hit low on first frame allowing Armor break with his double overhead into 40% into another HTB setup. And Rain does it with Jax midscreen using jump cancel combos.
Example of armor breaking version and how the threat of throw opens up your life deleted fast:
