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Heart Pierce vs Blood Drive - Why Heart Pierce is superior?

Eddy Wang

Skarlet scientist
I've seen a lot of people saying they prefer to use Blood Drive over Heart Pierce and then i look at Skarlet's options in both variations and nothing really shakes me more in disagreement when i look at everything Heart Pierce does and will continue to do so as the time passes while Blood Drive just looks dry as hell at this point.

Why i prefer Heart Pierce?
There are easy few points than can be made on my preference to Heart Pierce and never really care as much for Blood Drive as many people do here are some of my valid points
1. Skarlet has a lot of gaps in her key strings, in time, those gaps will start to get flawless blocked and she will lose some breathable room to apply some pressure, this is one of the main reasons why i prefer Heart Pierce, due the ability to stand her ground against pressure, fighting relentless players and the ability to counter flawless block counters at any possible point with the right read.

2. The same counter which nulifies flawless block, also recovers more health enough to scare a player to not be as relentless as they want it to be not only because of the amount of damage she will take, but the amount of health she can get from it each time she amplifies it, to remind you that there is a crushing blow activated by it which makes an inclusion of one more on the list she needs to use whenever necessary.

3. Teleport - Her teleport might not be the best in the game but its not all worst either, the problem is a lot of Skarlet players want to teleport on reaction to counter other zoners, which will never work, remember, this is a character which her foundation its built upon neutral, so she does a lot of things different, her teleport its mainly an escaping tool so you can use when she is getting cornered, its basically a reposition tool which gives her neutral back just as quick.


Why i don't prefer Blood Drive?
At glance it might look like both variations are good, but this was before i noticed what happened to Cell Siphon, a move that used to be S tier has been nerfed heavily and there is almost no point in using it for several reasons
1. Siphon nerf affects this variation pretty hard in many aspects
a)The amount of health that gains is very minimal considering she has to amplify to get it, insignificant enough for the attacker to even care or be afraid of commiting a bunch of mistakes
b) The +7 on amplify advantage its gone and its now +4 as regular Siphon, putting Skarlet on a huge risk whenever she tries to gain some health with the big risk of dragging the opponents too much closer to her which its the worse position this variation could be, for that reason i suggest blood drive players using the abridged version which is bf2amp which gives more health back, doesn't restand but you don't have to fight hard to get your neutral back.
c) restand is useless no need for that, look point above if you skipped.

2. Blood Ball gives a massive advantage so i guess having the ability to control it might be excellent, something i never really felt the need of considering Heart Pierce has teleport attached to it so i can teleport while the ball is traveling even if she doesn't get a full combo of it on hit, its still good to apply pressure or perform a throw.

To remind you that B2 also has received a nerf in which Skarlet no longer gains health when the Krushing Blow from that move its activated, it only does slightly more damage, something that its beyond me, NRS could at least make this KB more interesting by giving a launch on KB, would totally bring some ressemblance of the MK9 Overhead, this would make B2 great again.


After looking at this comparition, i see everything on both variations are pretty much equal both do the exact same things thanks to the universal moves, the main difference its on the equipped moves in which i think Blood Drive is way inferior, not only because it gain a lot less health, but everytime she does she loses her optimal spacing at cost of gaining just a little bit of health, reason why i think Siphon might not have use at all since the restand feature and health regain feature are both less preferable now considering she doesn't have an upclose counter for those specific situations.
 
I've seen a lot of people saying they prefer to use Blood Drive over Heart Pierce and then i look at Skarlet's options in both variations and nothing really shakes me more in disagreement when i look at everything Heart Pierce does and will continue to do so as the time passes while Blood Drive just looks dry as hell at this point.

Why i prefer Heart Pierce?
There are easy few points than can be made on my preference to Heart Pierce and never really care as much for Blood Drive as many people do here are some of my valid points
1. Skarlet has a lot of gaps in her key strings, in time, those gaps will start to get flawless blocked and she will lose some breathable room to apply some pressure, this is one of the main reasons why i prefer Heart Pierce, due the ability to stand her ground against pressure, fighting relentless players and the ability to counter flawless block counters at any possible point with the right read.

2. The same counter which nulifies flawless block, also recovers more health enough to scare a player to not be as relentless as they want it to be not only because of the amount of damage she will take, but the amount of health she can get from it each time she amplifies it, to remind you that there is a crushing blow activated by it which makes an inclusion of one more on the list she needs to use whenever necessary.

3. Teleport - Her teleport might not be the best in the game but its not all worst either, the problem is a lot of Skarlet players want to teleport on reaction to counter other zoners, which will never work, remember, this is a character which her foundation its built upon neutral, so she does a lot of things different, her teleport its mainly an escaping tool so you can use when she is getting cornered, its basically a reposition tool which gives her neutral back just as quick.


Why i don't prefer Blood Drive?
At glance it might look like both variations are good, but this was before i noticed what happened to Cell Siphon, a move that used to be S tier has been nerfed heavily and there is almost no point in using it for several reasons
1. Siphon nerf affects this variation pretty hard in many aspects
a)The amount of health that gains is very minimal considering she has to amplify to get it, insignificant enough for the attacker to even care or be afraid of commiting a bunch of mistakes
b) The +7 on amplify advantage its gone and its now +4 as regular Siphon, putting Skarlet on a huge risk whenever she tries to gain some health with the big risk of dragging the opponents too much closer to her which its the worse position this variation could be, for that reason i suggest blood drive players using the abridged version which is bf2amp which gives more health back, doesn't restand but you don't have to fight hard to get your neutral back.
c) restand is useless no need for that, look point above if you skipped.

2. Blood Ball gives a massive advantage so i guess having the ability to control it might be excellent, something i never really felt the need of considering Heart Pierce has teleport attached to it so i can teleport while the ball is traveling even if she doesn't get a full combo of it on hit, its still good to apply pressure or perform a throw.

To remind you that B2 also has received a nerf in which Skarlet no longer gains health when the Krushing Blow from that move its activated, it only does slightly more damage, something that its beyond me, NRS could at least make this KB more interesting by giving a launch on KB, would totally bring some ressemblance of the MK9 Overhead, this would make B2 great again.


After looking at this comparition, i see everything on both variations are pretty much equal both do the exact same things thanks to the universal moves, the main difference its on the equipped moves in which i think Blood Drive is way inferior, not only because it gain a lot less health, but everytime she does she loses her optimal spacing at cost of gaining just a little bit of health, reason why i think Siphon might not have use at all since the restand feature and health regain feature are both less preferable now considering she doesn't have an upclose counter for those specific situations.
You have valid points, but the one about countering Flawless block with her parry isn’t always applicable. If a character has 9 frames or faster u2/u3 from the FB and does it fast enough , Skarlet can’t parry them, blood dance just want be fast enough to be activated out of any string.
Lab it and you will see that like half the cast has 9 fr or faster u2/u3. So that makes it MU dependent.
I have been playing a lot of Geras and his 6 frame u2 doesn’t require any effort to FB punish Skarlet every time without worrying about her parry
 

Eddy Wang

Skarlet scientist
You have valid points, but the one about countering Flawless block with her parry isn’t always applicable. If a character has 9 frames or faster u2/u3 from the FB and does it fast enough , Skarlet can’t parry them, blood dance just want be fast enough to be activated out of any string.
Lab it and you will see that like half the cast has 9 fr or faster u2/u3. So that makes it MU dependent.
I have been playing a lot of Geras and his 6 frame u2 doesn’t require any effort to FB punish Skarlet every time without worrying about her parry
Dagger dance its equally 9f, it highly depends on how you use them, and how you mix it, for example she has to be at least at -1 on flawless block to be launched by one that is 9f which you can alter how you shape things up, like instead of waiting a full string you cancel with the tongue, or with blood ball which is plus enough or even blood trail.
 
Dagger dance its equally 9f, it highly depends on how you use them, and how you mix it, for example she has to be at least at -1 on flawless block to be launched by one that is 9f which you can alter how you shape things up, like instead of waiting a full string you cancel with the tongue, or with blood ball which is plus enough or even blood trail.
F43xxBD and 124xxBD get beat out no matter what if opponent isn’t delaying his 9fr or faster u2/u3. And they are the important ones. So it can’t be used to counter. The other options you mentioned are available in Blood Drive as well
 

Dr. Cheesesteak

pygophile and podophile
I'm no scientist, but yeah, when I played Skarlet the first week, I used Heart Pierce out of preference of her tele and parry (I have since moved on to Jacqui). Tbh, I see a lot more #1 variations used for all characters? I think maybe players are just selecting the first variation either due to experimenting w/ the variations in order or just being unaware/new to selecting variations
 

Eddy Wang

Skarlet scientist
F43xxBD and 124xxBD get beat out no matter what if opponent isn’t delaying his 9fr or faster u2/u3. And they are the important ones. So it can’t be used to counter. The other options you mentioned are available in Blood Drive as well
That is why i said don't finish the full string, you will going to get launched by 9f because they are -1 on block or F.Block, instead of doing 124 or f43, try 12xxx slow special, or f4xxx slow special
see them trying to flawless block that.
And for them to beat at -1 they have to be pretty fast at reacting to flawless block confirmation at 9f launchers of course one frame delay and her dagger dance parries 9f launchers easy, i could care less about u3, they can spend all the meter they want for repositioning, its even better.
 
That is why i said don't finish the full string, you will going to get launched by 9f because they are -1 on block or F.Block, instead of doing 124 or f43, try 12xxx slow special, or f4xxx slow special
see them trying to flawless block that.
And for them to beat at -1 they have to be pretty fast at reacting to flawless block confirmation at 9f launchers of course one frame delay and her dagger dance parries 9f launchers easy, i could care less about u3, they can spend all the meter they want for repositioning, its even better.
Ending the string earlier doesn’t play into the title of you thread, as the other variation can do it as well.
It isn’t hard at all to do u2 on the first available frame as it is a reversal. I don’t have godlike reactions and I am doing it in training every time. And faster u2 are even easier the Geras one I did in a real match.
 

Eddy Wang

Skarlet scientist
Ending the string earlier doesn’t play into the title of you thread, as the other variation can do it as well.
It isn’t hard at all to do u2 on the first available frame as it is a reversal. I don’t have godlike reactions and I am doing it in training every time. And faster u2 are even easier the Geras one I did in a real match.
ok, point taken
 

KeyserSoze

Fabled Villain
I still prefer blood drive, but I mostly think it's because I suck at using parries.

Both variations are viable, which is all that matters to me.

I still wish they just let custom variations ride
 
Hey Eddy, have you found any uses for the Blood Ritual move? (DBF4 I think)

Seems pretty useless to me, minus the rare opportunities to chip out.
 
Valid points. Althought the flawless block thing is not that special, if you are cancelling strings with specials to throw off their flawless block timing, counter doesnt even come into the picture anymore. No point in doing counter anymore once they figured out not to flawless block since you can cancel strings midway.
So a couple months later once people are used to flawless block and d3 the counter, it means you will rarely get a chance to land a counter.
And with blood ritual being useless, thats 2 move spaces wasted on a variation, we would basically pick heart pierce for the teleport.

This is if course talking about endgame months later, right now Im having a lot of fun landing counters online. But they dont know yet.

Once I encounter really good oponents, Im going back to blood drive, Im taking nerfed cyphoon and better zoning over a teleport any day.

Hopefully by then balance patches already will be out changing out on the variations. Because I dont want to end up playing either figured out heart pierce or nerfed blood drive.
 
Valid points. Althought the flawless block thing is not that special, if you are cancelling strings with specials to throw off their flawless block timing, counter doesnt even come into the picture anymore. No point in doing counter anymore once they figured out not to flawless block since you can cancel strings midway.
So a couple months later once people are used to flawless block and d3 the counter, it means you will rarely get a chance to land a counter.
And with blood ritual being useless, thats 2 move spaces wasted on a variation, we would basically pick heart pierce for the teleport.

This is if course talking about endgame months later, right now Im having a lot of fun landing counters online. But they dont know yet.

Once I encounter really good oponents, Im going back to blood drive, Im taking nerfed cyphoon and better zoning over a teleport any day.

Hopefully by then balance patches already will be out changing out on the variations. Because I dont want to end up playing either figured out heart pierce or nerfed blood drive.
Talking about F43? Yes you can F4xxtounge (or anything else) to mess up with flawless block or just F4 stagger (I prefer F4 stagger, or 12 stagger against flawless block). But you can also blown up for it. But that's the mind game around flawless block.

But it is universal for all characters. What makes heart pierce a bit stronger is the parry cancel. Unfortunately against 9F or faster U2/U3 characters this option is not possible.

That applies for all other strings with gap but there are exceptions: e.g. max range F21 is not punishable by flawless block counter even for Shao Kahn... Lot of characters have short range U2/U3.
But 124 and F43 are in close range so that's not an option.

I think that is not bad for Skarlet as she can use this mind game for her advantage - and I truly see potential in some gaps in the future for the attacker's advantage!
Maybe for Skarlet it is rather a disadvantage as staggering 12 or F43 is not that strong - but do not underestimate it. Especially the cancels you were talking about. There are many options to mess with the opponent. :)


Btw I also prefer heart pierce for pretty much the same reasons Eddy Wang mentioned nice work!
 
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There’s a move that restands and gives you a Noxious DoT aura. Wish we had it :(

Hell I’ll take Red Mist too, even though most buffs go away on cinematics.
 

Juanchaaa

Skarlet Tech Junkie
I've seen a lot of people saying they prefer to use Blood Drive over Heart Pierce and then i look at Skarlet's options in both variations and nothing really shakes me more in disagreement when i look at everything Heart Pierce does and will continue to do so as the time passes while Blood Drive just looks dry as hell at this point.

Why i prefer Heart Pierce?
There are easy few points than can be made on my preference to Heart Pierce and never really care as much for Blood Drive as many people do here are some of my valid points
1. Skarlet has a lot of gaps in her key strings, in time, those gaps will start to get flawless blocked and she will lose some breathable room to apply some pressure, this is one of the main reasons why i prefer Heart Pierce, due the ability to stand her ground against pressure, fighting relentless players and the ability to counter flawless block counters at any possible point with the right read.

2. The same counter which nulifies flawless block, also recovers more health enough to scare a player to not be as relentless as they want it to be not only because of the amount of damage she will take, but the amount of health she can get from it each time she amplifies it, to remind you that there is a crushing blow activated by it which makes an inclusion of one more on the list she needs to use whenever necessary.

3. Teleport - Her teleport might not be the best in the game but its not all worst either, the problem is a lot of Skarlet players want to teleport on reaction to counter other zoners, which will never work, remember, this is a character which her foundation its built upon neutral, so she does a lot of things different, her teleport its mainly an escaping tool so you can use when she is getting cornered, its basically a reposition tool which gives her neutral back just as quick.


Why i don't prefer Blood Drive?
At glance it might look like both variations are good, but this was before i noticed what happened to Cell Siphon, a move that used to be S tier has been nerfed heavily and there is almost no point in using it for several reasons
1. Siphon nerf affects this variation pretty hard in many aspects
a)The amount of health that gains is very minimal considering she has to amplify to get it, insignificant enough for the attacker to even care or be afraid of commiting a bunch of mistakes
b) The +7 on amplify advantage its gone and its now +4 as regular Siphon, putting Skarlet on a huge risk whenever she tries to gain some health with the big risk of dragging the opponents too much closer to her which its the worse position this variation could be, for that reason i suggest blood drive players using the abridged version which is bf2amp which gives more health back, doesn't restand but you don't have to fight hard to get your neutral back.
c) restand is useless no need for that, look point above if you skipped.

2. Blood Ball gives a massive advantage so i guess having the ability to control it might be excellent, something i never really felt the need of considering Heart Pierce has teleport attached to it so i can teleport while the ball is traveling even if she doesn't get a full combo of it on hit, its still good to apply pressure or perform a throw.

To remind you that B2 also has received a nerf in which Skarlet no longer gains health when the Krushing Blow from that move its activated, it only does slightly more damage, something that its beyond me, NRS could at least make this KB more interesting by giving a launch on KB, would totally bring some ressemblance of the MK9 Overhead, this would make B2 great again.


After looking at this comparition, i see everything on both variations are pretty much equal both do the exact same things thanks to the universal moves, the main difference its on the equipped moves in which i think Blood Drive is way inferior, not only because it gain a lot less health, but everytime she does she loses her optimal spacing at cost of gaining just a little bit of health, reason why i think Siphon might not have use at all since the restand feature and health regain feature are both less preferable now considering she doesn't have an upclose counter for those specific situations.
I Saw your other videos to skarlets overall approach and I was surprise to find that we share the same outlook when it comes to her strat.
I agree 100% with what you're saying (Heart Pierce is the way to go). FlawBlock will start to take a huge roll soon enough. But at the same time this character is built around strong neutral/fundamental play I don't see the logic in throwing out her buttons unless the opponent has no bar or in a wiff punishing scenario. Parry (At Times) can also be used to bait out wake ups attacks.
 

FanTalk

The 5th Yonko
I'm slowly starting to lean towards Heart Pierce >>> Blood Drive. This post was a great analysis Eddy. I think what makes Heart Pierce much more versatile is the teleport and parry. It's safe to say Skarlet is a powerful Zoner so using Cell Ciphon to bring your opponent and then grab or whatever is slowly catching on, and it's kind of dangerous being up close with your opponent when Skarlet's pokes are a bit slow.

I've been manning Blood Drive but I plan on learning Heart soon.
 
I'm slowly starting to lean towards Heart Pierce >>> Blood Drive. This post was a great analysis Eddy. I think what makes Heart Pierce much more versatile is the teleport and parry. It's safe to say Skarlet is a powerful Zoner so using Cell Ciphon to bring your opponent and then grab or whatever is slowly catching on, and it's kind of dangerous being up close with your opponent when Skarlet's pokes are a bit slow.

I've been manning Blood Drive but I plan on learning Heart soon.
Close restand does simply not fit in her playstyle. Especially with minor health regen and only +4 adv.
I dont say nrs killed her other variation because slow bloodball is a thing but siphon is nerfed enough I would not really use over tounge/bf2 amp ender.
 

Eddy Wang

Skarlet scientist
I'm slowly starting to lean towards Heart Pierce >>> Blood Drive. This post was a great analysis Eddy. I think what makes Heart Pierce much more versatile is the teleport and parry. It's safe to say Skarlet is a powerful Zoner so using Cell Ciphon to bring your opponent and then grab or whatever is slowly catching on, and it's kind of dangerous being up close with your opponent when Skarlet's pokes are a bit slow.

I've been manning Blood Drive but I plan on learning Heart soon.
the siphon recover less health than bf2 amp, that's how shitty it is
 

SaltShaker

In Zoning We Trust
From Day 1 I said Siphon was overrated, and that was beta 1 before nerf. I like changing Blood Ball speed, but it isn't worth it to lose teleport and parry.

Eddy is dead on here. There's much more utility with being able to far teleport your way out from backing into a corner. She can dictate the pace. You can hard read to punish projectiles, but I prefer it as a space control tool.

With parry, it is very strong. It looks almost identical to her block, so in live game speed it's hard to distinguish it. Someone mashing out their mid thinking they are pressuring you gets hit, and if you combine the AMP damage with the damage you receive back it's near 20%. Wish the KB was 2 AMP parry instead of 3 though. Against low starters happy characters you have to be a bit more cautious with it though.

All in all I think Heart Pierce is so much better that I barely even touch the other variation now.
 

hatyr

tease out the impurities
For some stupid reason specials with down up inputs are strict in how you have to input them to get the cancel to work.
Indeed. Feel like I have to input it right as the last hit of the string starts to connect -- can't buffer it for whatever reason.