Buff thread only for Captain Cold

I do not have anything to add, just wanna say that Captain Cold is insanely fun to play.

Is it too much to ask for more range on F23?

Somea2V said:

Look, I know I'm in the minority here that thinks Cold is fine where he's at, just hard to play. I don't have any real buff suggestions, and I'm not going to shoot down any as I get where most of these come from, but I do want to point out one thing.

If 12 cancelled successfully into MB Freeze to continue a combo, do you guys really think it would change much? People would begin learning to block overhead then low, so it won't open people up. It wouldn't help with pressure. And most importantly, whiff punishing shouldn't be done with 12, so we already have viable combo options for that scenario.

I get why people are so zeroed in on 12 getting more cancel frames but I feel like you guys are overestimating how useful that would be.

And as far as "buffs" go, I would reiterate making the Ice Wall more consistent but that seems like more of a fix than a buff. And I get why some things bypass it, like some trait options and some tracking "projectiles". But it is inconsistent in some fashions. For example, Deadshot's bullets from his specials to get blocked by it... except for his retreating shot. On MB and with proper timing, the Wall will block multiple bullets. The exception is the multi retreating shot which completely ignores it.

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Finally someone thats gets it ! My biggest gripe is when he does mb ice wall and kicks it his foot extends past the wall and he can get clipped but i guess its up to us to know when to meter burn it correctly just sucks when u burn a bar just to get hit

snort said:

You could condition them to block the EX puddle and now you could cancel 12 into MB f3. Their's also a chance you could catch them sleeping with the overhead/low. He needs this.

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This is already something you can do off F23 and B23. Nothing has to change with 12 for this option.

Ninequads93 said:

Finally someone thats gets it ! My biggest gripe is when he does mb ice wall and kicks it his foot extends past the wall and he can get clipped but i guess its up to us to know when to meter burn it correctly just sucks when u burn a bar just to get hit

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You know, it is frustrating but I think that one is on us to make good calls. A lot of characters can lose meter going for a MB and then screwing up the timing or spacing against the opponent's attacks.

But, I am slowly working through the cast and testing every single projectile move in the game against wall and MB wall. I'll have a thread up in a little while to break it down.

What if they let us MB grab to get a combo? The animation already has freeze parts so it wouldn't be much work. IMO it would eliminate the need to add mixups and/or make D1 MB puddle a thing. Aside from FIXING D1(Please NRS) I think this would go along way and not be OP.

Somea2V said:

But, I am slowly working through the cast and testing every single projectile move in the game against wall and MB wall. I'll have a thread up in a little while to break it down.

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Already tested them. The Wall doesn't work against the summoning mobs, except of Hyenas. The MB Wall doesn't work on all the summoning mobs. It works on the normal summonings.

Tanno said:

Already tested them. The Wall doesn't work against the summoning mobs, except of Hyenas. The MB Wall doesn't work on all the summoning mobs. It works on the normal summonings.

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What do you mean between "normal summoning" and "summoning mobs"?

Somea2V said:

What do you mean between "normal summoning" and "summoning mobs"?

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My small typo there. "normal summoning" = "normal projectiles".

"summoning mobs" = Cyborg's bots, Ivy's poison flower, and such.

They need to fix MB Ice Wall. Spending meter should not create a gap that allows a projectile or whatever to go through, eating up both his attack and his bar of meter he spent.

Why the fuck does spending a bar of meter create a gap???? Why does his freaking foot hurtbox extend far enough out of the wall to get hit???

It's not like CC needs a full page of buffs to be good. He's already good- He just needs a few tweaks to make him not utterly hopeless against the top tiers of the cast that have better zoning than he does- Matchups where he has to scrape by to get trait little by little so MAYBE he can use it near the end of the game when he's already at like 5% health left.

Having a couple more strings added to his extremely meager toolset (Like they did with Katana) would also be insanely helpful. It gets boring just doing f23 and 122 to start pressure all the time. Also, df3 is completely useless as it is now. Has anyone gotten any mileage out of it? Just seems like a taunt move.

EDIT: Also, since this is on my mind, it would be really nice if MB db3 (Ground Freeze) wasn't so insanely easy to punish. Supergirl and Superman's MB freeze are all safe on block. Is CC's unsafe just because it's a low? His only low combo starter (Which you need to spend meter on to get)? Could we at least make d1~MB DB3 a thing?

snort said:

You could condition them to block the EX puddle and now you could cancel 12 into MB f3. Their's also a chance you could catch them sleeping with the overhead/low. He needs this.

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Any good players will block this on reaction IMO.

KH_Seraph said:

They need to fix MB Ice Wall. Spending meter should not create a gap that allows a projectile or whatever to go through, eating up both his attack and his bar of meter he spent.

Why the fuck does spending a bar of meter create a gap???? Why does his freaking foot hurtbox extend far enough out of the wall to get hit???

It's not like CC needs a full page of buffs to be good. He's already good- He just needs a few tweaks to make him not utterly hopeless against the top tiers of the cast that have better zoning than he does- Matchups where he has to scrape by to get trait little by little so MAYBE he can use it near the end of the game when he's already at like 5% health left.

Having a couple more strings added to his extremely meager toolset (Like they did with Katana) would also be insanely helpful. It gets boring just doing f23 and 122 to start pressure all the time. Also, df3 is completely useless as it is now. Has anyone gotten any mileage out of it? Just seems like a taunt move.

EDIT: Also, since this is on my mind, it would be really nice if MB db3 (Ground Freeze) wasn't so insanely easy to punish. Supergirl and Superman's MB freeze are all safe on block. Is CC's unsafe just because it's a low? His only low combo starter (Which you need to spend meter on to get)? Could we at least make d1~MB DB3 a thing?

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df3 is basically just used as a damage buff to corner combos if you don't start with death-cicle. Yeah pretty much useless move.

Has anyone else ever hit and opp with a max range ice puddle and they just stumble and don't get frozen but the puddle remains?

F21 is suppose to b mids right ? Why do some characters low profile it

Cold's biggest problem is that he doesn't have a reliable trap the opponent has to respect at multiple distances throughout the entire match. He has to wait until he charges trait, or get you in the corner to trap with puddle or ice block, which he already has a hard time doing.

For example, Red Hood and (Hunter) Predator from MKX both have a ground trap that must be respected and can start their setups, making them better trap characters. Closest thing CC has to this are the icicles, which don't setup much. So I say give him a new trap. Maybe not a mine exactly, but a trap to help him force respect from most distances.

12, puddle should also work. It's only fair because Red Hood has a better high, OH that can cancel into MB mine.

I also agree with ice sphere having different distances, and full protection on wall.

TL;DR:
- New trap
- 12, puddle connecting
- DF3 having ranges
- Wall Full protection from projectiles

I have a buff idea that could work for frost field. What if the move had slightly longer duration and it had a slowdown effect for projectiles? That way Cold could put it on the screen against zoners and potentially have some additional time to get his own zoning game going with cold blasts/death-cicles.

I personally don't like the idea of giving it multiple ranges just because it is tied to his gun, so the animation of him spraying his gun in one place and having the effect show up somewhere else is kinda weird.

Also, 1 projectile shot to take down the MB ice block seems kinda pointless to me. If it was harder to break I think it would be used a lot more.

I hardly ever use the ice block because of how easy it is to blow through it with zoning in this game.

It would be super rad if his EX projectile could freeze on contact like Sub Zero. He'd actually have a good counter-zoning tool that would need to be respected otherwise trades would lead to full combo punishes.

It really wouldn't be OP since you can only freeze opponents once in a combo anyway.

When I read the part about "give captain cold a real 50/50" I stopped. This isnt mkx.

DeftMonk said:

When I read the part about "give captain cold a real 50/50" I stopped. This isnt mkx.

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And he already kind of has two, if you condition the opponent to block high against 1 and in the corner with Icicle and D1 xx Puddle or just Puddle. But those are heavily situational.

EDIT: Icicle set ups do work outside the corner, but my previous comment about them being situational stands.

Somea2V said:

And he already kind of has two, if you condition the opponent to block high against 1 and in the corner with Icicle and D1 xx Puddle or just Puddle. But those are heavily situational.

EDIT: Icicle set ups do work outside the corner, but my previous comment about them being situational stands.

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Exactly... CC already has hard to blockable setups. If you give him flash 50/50s and his zoning, why would anyone pick flash or joker or anyone who only has one or the other. Granted I don't play CC, but I have heard he has a string with all highs? That obviously needs to go. I am sure he has other things that could use help, but asking to turn him into the next jack of all trades is a little bit silly.

DeftMonk said:

Exactly... CC already has hard to blockable setups. If you give him flash 50/50s and his zoning, why would anyone pick flash or joker or anyone who only has one or the other. Granted I don't play CC, but I have heard he has a string with all highs? That obviously needs to go. I am sure he has other things that could use help, but asking to turn him into the next jack of all trades is a little bit silly.

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The string of all highs is a fairly fast, advancing string. I wouldn't change it as it already serves a role. And as annoying as so many of his highs are, he has decent frame data so that's the trade off. I think he's definitely one of the more balanced characters in that respect.

Somea2V said:

The string of all highs is a fairly fast, advancing string. I wouldn't change it as it already serves a role. And as annoying as so many of his highs are, he has decent frame data so that's the trade off. I think he's definitely one of the more balanced characters in that respect.

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Ahh ok so its similar to f12 badam then? Well in your opinion whats wrong with the char?

It would be similar if it would be 7f startup. Now it's just trash.

M.D. said:

It would be similar if it would be 7f startup. Now it's just trash.

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10f is nothing to be ashamed of.

DeftMonk said:

Ahh ok so its similar to f12 badam then? Well in your opinion whats wrong with the char?

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I think it's too early to claim anything is inherently wrong. He is just a very high skill character to use. He requires more significant effort to play than most others and that isn't necessarily something that is "normalized" by patches.

I want df3 to be "normalized".I meant to be useful. I hate taunt moves with a passion (Like Sub Zero ice puddle in MK9), and now this. Please change it into something useful.

This thread may be dead, IDK, but I feel like posting here since it was pointed out that he wasn't anywhere in EVO in the general discussion. Here are a few things I would like to see that haven't been proposed:

Trait
-Passive gain on trait that goes up on use of special moves and charges much faster manually. He should always have SOME trait available.
-B4 has faster startup and eliminates chip ala unbreakable Sub. Opponent takes damage as they attack? Sure, he can keep it, but buying time against zoning would be way more practical.
-D4 should be faster. Make it a threat on the level of Canary, not just a full screen anti air. Charging between getting zoned should get him there fast enough to be a threat in every game, not just when the stars align.
-Previously mentioned F4 range options. Make the cloud TALLER - the horizontal range is fine, but it needs to be higher in order to be more consistent. Correct the grenade to stop at the corner and not beyond it. I think backdash clearing freeze is a good balance. That should stay.

Specials:
-Everything anyone has ever asked for with DB3 comboing off OH, plus this: faster startup (16 frames) for point blank and held longer for a further range. Make it cancellable like Joker's gun. That way, when someone plays footsies, you have a viable midscreen threat. It would be reactable at range, but cancellable to allow for some mind games. Max range should take ~30 frames and reach about as far as a neutral BD2 from Firestorm. If the opponent is closer than that, let the first hit track the puddle to them. This would allow you to buffer a setup to make it harder to block. Right now there's a sweet spot between the two lows and the OH from icicle that can be hard to capitalize on. This would allow players to fiddle with that more intuitively.
-Icicle tracks. Don't get me wrong, I think Aquaman's tentacle range should be manually inputted, and Red Hood and Firestorm's options are as they should be. However, the hit box on the icicle is conservative enough that I think it merits it. Just treat it like Sektor or Tremor or literally any previous character's OH setup and allow manual left/right direction to predict movement.
-MB Icicle is invincible. Nothing goes through it, PERIOD. It doesn't break, it doesn't move. It becomes a fixture in the environment until it disappears. That's the only way I see this move being viable at all. Keep the range inputs on this move while removing them from the meterless version.
-DF3 should not have different ranges, but it should have a different hit box. The tiny circle is useless even without corner whiffs (fix them, obviously). Make it longer horizontally but with almost no vertical presence. Make it slow the opponent like F4 does. Make it slow projectiles. MB should recover very quickly. This is the "F4 lite" that is deserved for a bar and would make for viable setups.
-Someone mentioned a freezing projectile and I agree. Right now, Cold has no way of full screen punishing, even unsafely. I think a massively unsafe ice laser in the style of his super would be nice. When you consider that he doesn't have the mobility for a full screen confirm, I think this could be perfectly fine. Give it plenty of scaling too, sure. That would completely change the Aquaman MU and force a little respect that he desperately needs. Having an Aquaman player shotgun tentacles or Bladam black magic recklessly is just too much without strong rushdown tools. I don't think it should just act like Sub's safe, projectile eating ice ball. It should be fast and *insanely* minus. Maybe D4 already fills this role. I don't think so, though. I want both.
-Everyone knows the Wall needs fixes. Just fix it, other than that it's fine.

Normals
-B232 is high, high, mid. 8 frame startup. Easy fix.
-If you can't reduce the startup of DF2, give more hit advantage to 213. Enough that we can get an icicle out for oki. Right now, tech rolling destroys many setups. Give him the Red Hood treatment! I want a hard knockdown into setups.
-More cancel advantage to D1. Not just for punishes, but for background bounces. Please?
-Everything else has already been said. His normals aren't that bad, honestly, but I agree he should have more.

What do you think? Is this how you make Cold OP or is this just good sense?