StealthyMuffin
Earth's Mightiest Knucklehead
This isn't about those lol.
I think the problem here isn't just throws are dumb. It's that some character designs are dumb. A footsie based character is supposed to win at neutral and if he they end up losing that they usually have a hard time making comebacks. Plenty of footsie based characters do just fine without having a throw guessing game. As for OSing techs while blocking, NRS can either make throw inputs override block so then you can bait and punish or put in an anti-tech-mash system in the game. The latter I already said which someone else pointed out before me. I still think throws in this game are dumb but I do see how it might be a problem for some characters if throws were changed. IMO those characters should be better made if taking away a guess is going to harm them so much.
But what footsie based characters don't need grabs to give incentive to press buttons? Also throws are risky, the whiff animation is long, I have to be right on top of you and you have to be blocking. They are good but not dumb as you guys say.
If techs aren't mashable and you try to time a tech, I pause for a split second then throw. If they made throws override blocking I act like I'm going to throw duck/jump/attack and you get punished. There are plenty of ways to make throws a viable mind game even with MK's block button. If I had to always release block to tech a throw I would at least like to be given a chance to react to a backwards or forwards throw and receive no damage for properly defending against a throw.
That's how I feel about it. It's pretty risky throwing out a grab. It's 12% and no follow-up
Depends on how much damage they did.
I feel grapplers should have at least one tool to use at full screen. Or at least something to move them quick and/or to go through projectiles. These tools don't have to be incredibly powerful but extremely useful for those characters. Take green hand, it clashes projectiles and ex is invincible, 2 hits and leaves your opponent standing and is a combo ender for gief. Lariat is a good anti air and also allows gief to get through projectiles without being predictable. In MKx if you look at Jason's stuff, Teleport isn't that great without meter, same with dash punch which is a high. Armour and Pursuit need setups to get going and pursuit just needs one hit to lose it. They have some tools to alleviate the usual flaws of grapplers. Jason on paper sounds great and he still ends up mid tier maybe even lower. Which is status quo for grapplers. As for characters like EB and cassie they aren't actual grapplers and more like mixup characters who have a command grab, like fei long or yun in SF4. So I don't expect them to get much advantage or damage off of their grabs. As for characters like Kano and Goro, they have good tools to do from afar but those things still aren't as amazing as what far away characters can do. Kano probably has it the easiest from fullscreen out of the grapplers. The advantage and damage Kotal or Jason got for using command grabs probably wouldn't be the same but neither would the perks of using Kano's or Goro's. I just think overall command grabs are lackluster in this game.
I agree. I mentioned Erron and Cassie because they have grabs, and actually forgot Jax. Many people have argued that Erron's ability to tick off of 21122 at several points makes him the best grappler in the game, although, as you've pointed out, he's not meant to be a grappler. Jax had several strings he can tick off, and Brawler can option select grab to come off of a blocked jump in (and do meter burn air throw on hit). The actual grapplers, however, struggle.
But there's ways around grabs now and defending against them is viable. You can punish the shit out of throws if you read it correctly and nuetral crouch. You take the risk of going with your read and score huge damage if you're right.
I have to agree here. The whole reason I ever play grapplers is to work my way in and then make it hurt. Meanwhile, in MKX grapplers are getting a pathetic 14-17% dmg for a meterless throw, and characters like commando Kano don't have too many options for making that damage up elsewhere. Sure he has knife and kanoball from fullscreen, but they pay small dividends and fullscreen kanoball is a risky read.
Yeah overall grapplers in MK seemed to play with the grappler playstyle without the payoffs of being grappler.
The way I've seen footsie characters is that they have better normals (reach, priority, AAs.) and have specials that help them keep a certain distance without necessarily applying pressure. You would whiff punish by walking back and forth and also sticking out normals of your own to try and bait your opponent into sticking something out so you can punish. A footsie character playing mid screen wouldn't even be in range to throw. The first 2 off the top of my head would be chun and guile from SF. Keeping the opponent out and using every misstep to get in as a means to tap them with buttons. One tactic I like that I think only Metallic Tremor has is sending out a slow fireball and approaching.
I meant examples from mkx. Sf is a totally different game so that example is not good for this specific question. There's a lot of other things in sf that make all that possible.
I always tech the direction that would throw me towards the corner
I know that much. Consistently making the correct read as to whether or not they're going to mix it up with a button seems difficult, though. Maybe there's a trick.
But that's also partly my point. To say a footsie character needs grab bait to whiff punish then the character probably isn't a footsie character. To play footsie they would need good normals to cover ranges, maybe a projectile, and other specials to make them play a certain way. But mostly it's about the normals. Kung lao plays this way, Kotal Kahn, and I play this way with my brawler Cassie and MoS Raiden. The projectile example might barely work here but everything else I described definitely happens.