I will offer my perspective.
Eldriken said:
Darkseid has great damage, but only if you have meter and land the hit. You're not getting much damage without meter unless you get a background bounce. But this can be said about a fair amount of the roster.
The vast majority of characters have limited combos without meter in this game. Darkseid is not an exception to this rule, but f+2,3 -> jumping 3 -> stomp does very good meter-less damage as a punishing combo.
He's only really scary (some MUs are obviously different) when he has his trait and even then, if you know how to deal with the situation, it's a lot less alarming. Now, it goes without saying that you're gonna fuck up and get caught eventually. It's just the way it is. Human error 'n all that.
With or without trait, Darkseid has an unsafe 50/50 mix up that leads to a 40% combo. The trait complements and strengthens this mix up. He is the only zoning character who has access to such high damage from a 50/50 mix up. Deadshot's 50/50 mix up is superior to Darkseid's in the corner but leads to limited damage mid screen.
His zoning is fairly good in my opinion. It's not top 3 zoning, but it should be noted that it serves its purpose.
I think the zoning is top 3 but only in conjunction with the other tools.
His buttons are just...gtfo. His only real punish against most things in the game seems to be from his d1 or s2, neither of which lead to fuck all as far as damage goes. If you want to launch someone as a punish, they need to be -14 (f2 is 13f) or -18 (b1 is 17f) at the very least. What. The. FUCK.
112 is +3 but has a dumb kind of pushback that doesn't allow you to capitalize on it.
His strings need to come out on whiff, namely 22(3) and 21. I guess 22 not coming out on whiff makes sense because if you've ever seen the second 2 whiff in a combo, the Omega Beam goes all nutty and shoots into the sky. Perhaps due to the way its tracking seems to work, it coming out on whiff may cause some balance issues or technical issues. If that's not the case, however, then it ought to come out.
Same with 21. The 1 is a short-range low that I think would be a decent tool in the neutral instead of relying on db1 and its awful startup, whiff recovery and block recovery. Oh, let's also not forget that it fucking whiffs randomly DURING combos. Or, it will whiff entirely even though it looks like it should have hit the opponent.
I agree. The buttons and strings suck, but they suck for a reason. The developers of the game probably did not want the character to have good buttons and strings in combination with the 50/50 mix up, trait, and teleport.
Why df2 is a high is beyond me. Why you can't MB it on block to make it +10 like the game says you can is beyond me as well as that would eliminate SOOOOO much of the disrespecting that goes on against this character while he's plus.
If d,f+2 hit mid and if you were able to meter burn d,f+2 on block, defensive d+1 -> MB d,f+2 would be too powerful in combination with the 50/50 mix up. Given the enormous block advantage, you would essentially create pre-patch Quan Chi. Besides, only a handful of characters in this game have any block advantages higher than +2.
I think that since db1 has awful startup and recovery (whiff and block) that you should be able to MB it to launch but still retain its current frame data so it remains punishable.
Maybe, but you should use d+3 instead of d,f+1, which should only be used at a range where the tip of the laser hits. d+3 has slightly less range than d,f+1 but shares the same start up frames, is safer on block by 8 frames, and creates an untechable knockdown. You also do not have to hit d+3 at max range to be very safe on block. I treat Darkseid's d+3 kind of like Zod's push in Injustice 1. Very good range. Safe on block. Respectable hit advantage. Terrible whiff recovery frames. Depending on the match up, the risk ranges from low to medium while the reward is medium.
The character may have some issues as the game develops, but I suggest that we focus less on buffs and more on discovering tech and fighting the current top tier characters.
