M2Dave
Zoning Master
In light of all the recent complaining about Cyrax, Kabal, and Smoke, REO and I thought we would remind the community how busted some of the characters were when the game was initially released less than a year ago. We have come up with 12 characters who have had some type of broken bull shit at some point or another. REO and I each included a brief description for the characters with whom we are most familiar.
Enjoy the read, and keep it in mind the next time you decide to whine about Kabal's iaGBs.
Cyrax - what made Cyrax overpowered was his command grab, which had a comically low 2F break window. The command grab also led to the so-called bomb trap because of its humongous advantage. That is, when Cyrax placed a mid bomb after the command grab, the bomb would be guaranteed to hit. In other words, the command grab itself led to long and damaging juggles. Net resets in conjunction with the command grab broke the character entirely. He had the ability to end juggles with the net and then set you up for the command grab after any juggle. In essence, this combination was an infinite combo because breaking the command grab was almost impossible.
Ermac - TKP had less recovery on whiff and block, which made it easier to abuse. Ermac could link enhanced force balls off of strings at the cost of no meter. Less damage scaling was involved with strings and lift, which caused most of Ermac's BNBs to be right under 50%, add in x-rays and it was over 60%. f+4 gave temendous amount of avantage on hit (+50) which gave a free fully charged b+2 for an ublockable reset. This could be repeated as much as desired in the form of f+4, b+2*~dc~repeat for an infinite.
Freddy Krueger - Freddy did 25% more damage across the board. He could perform 65% combos with the use of one bar. His zoning was extremely powerful. The glove toss did 9% of damage while spikes had less recovery frames and did not suffer from damage reduction. Trying to zone him, even if you had a substantial life lead, would result in a very quick death. Because the regular close spike was only -6 on block, Freddy had a safe 50/50 mix ups against the vast majority of characters in the game. He also had access to the projectile immunity glitch.
Kabal - f+3,2~ndc gave tremendous advantage on block for another f+3,2 follow up that could only be interrupted by an armor move or taking the second hit to escape. b+2~ndc was +20 on block, hit mid, was a block infinite, and could only be escaped by jumping out after taking the hit. Also, d+4~ndc was good pressure with old blockstun, nomad dash cancels built more meter and he had enhanced fireball glitch
Kano - Kano was at his best when knives had a very fast recovery and the up ball had a 7F start up. More importantly, the up ball was only -8 on block. The combination of these two special moves led to a traditional yet very effective zoning game. The up ball, in particular, was a god-like defensive move as jumping and pressuring Kano was very difficult. You could also use the move offensively by checking those opponents who try to jump out or interrupt your strings. Up ball acted like a safe HP Shoryuken versus many characters.
Kitana - while not as broken as the rest of the characters listed, she had limited or no damage reduction on fans and EX fans, which lead to high damaging juggles. Furthermore, fans used to do more damage, and the last hit of 1,1,2 was an overhead.
Kung Lao - Spin was incredibly hard to launch punish on block because of the block stun, pushback, and recovery it had. Low hat on block was -6 and could only be punished in a just-frame manner. Being off by just 1 in frame in trying to poke punish would usually result in being counter punished by his spin. Low hat gave +10 advantage on hit which lead to free unavoidable offense afterwards. Teleport 2 gave advantage on block for free follow-ups and pressure. Teleport 3 lead to an infinite which was 2~teleport, 3~repeat. Enhanced hat toss on grounded opponents gave a free damage reset in the form of a jump in, this could be repeated up to 2 times for 100% damaging combos. Spin and dive kicks had no damage scaling so Kung Lao's basic BNB mid screen was around 40% while his wall BNBs were in the upper 50s. Add in x-ray, hit confirms, and meter usage and Kung Lao could get right below 80% against the wall.
Quan Chi - Sky drop gave a free safe jump on hit, enhanced rune on hit gave more advantage. Quan Chi had an infinite with trance, where after it connected he could whiff a move to reset it.
Raiden - teleport had less recovery frames and b+3,1,2 and 3,3,4 were +1 on block. Superman had an 8F start up. Vicinity blast was +14 on block, so repeating 2,2~VB would result in a block infinite combo. However, EX teleport was not as good as the current version is. Nonetheless, this version of Raiden must have been one of the lamest characters in fighting game history.
Sindel - 4 has 14 frames of start up, excellent range, and hits mid. 4~levitate cancel on block (+20) OR hit (+30) was an infinite that was inescapable once it made contact. Sindel had access to 100% combos and infinite damage resets with the broken properties on yell. She could easily land and combo into yell from 4 (true links) and then do a levitate cancel to reset the yell properites. However, her 100% combos and yell resets were just icing on the cake as she just needed to touch you once with 4 to end the round.
Skarlet - Skarlet had the ability to rapidly toss daggers similarly to Sareena in Mortal Kombat Armageddon. In fact, the daggers came out so fast they would interrupt the start up animation of several projectiles and teleports. A lot of characters could not approach her. Also, a glitch also allowed her to juggle after the slide.
Sonya - Sonya was the queen of infinites as she had a ton of various hit stun and block infinites. 4~msc, instant dive kick~4~msc, repeat, could be repeated as much as desired to reach infinite amounts of damage in combos usually resutling in 100%. d+4~msc~repeat was a block infinite in the most threatening manner of footsies. 2~msc~repeat and 4~msc~repeat were unbreakbale and inescapable block and hit infinites once they got going. 1,1,2~mcs~repeat, 3,1,2~mcs~repeat, and 2,1~msc~repeat were all block infinites that jailed the opponent if they were caught in stand block.
Who was the most broken character in your opinion?
Enjoy the read, and keep it in mind the next time you decide to whine about Kabal's iaGBs.
Cyrax - what made Cyrax overpowered was his command grab, which had a comically low 2F break window. The command grab also led to the so-called bomb trap because of its humongous advantage. That is, when Cyrax placed a mid bomb after the command grab, the bomb would be guaranteed to hit. In other words, the command grab itself led to long and damaging juggles. Net resets in conjunction with the command grab broke the character entirely. He had the ability to end juggles with the net and then set you up for the command grab after any juggle. In essence, this combination was an infinite combo because breaking the command grab was almost impossible.
Ermac - TKP had less recovery on whiff and block, which made it easier to abuse. Ermac could link enhanced force balls off of strings at the cost of no meter. Less damage scaling was involved with strings and lift, which caused most of Ermac's BNBs to be right under 50%, add in x-rays and it was over 60%. f+4 gave temendous amount of avantage on hit (+50) which gave a free fully charged b+2 for an ublockable reset. This could be repeated as much as desired in the form of f+4, b+2*~dc~repeat for an infinite.
Freddy Krueger - Freddy did 25% more damage across the board. He could perform 65% combos with the use of one bar. His zoning was extremely powerful. The glove toss did 9% of damage while spikes had less recovery frames and did not suffer from damage reduction. Trying to zone him, even if you had a substantial life lead, would result in a very quick death. Because the regular close spike was only -6 on block, Freddy had a safe 50/50 mix ups against the vast majority of characters in the game. He also had access to the projectile immunity glitch.
Kabal - f+3,2~ndc gave tremendous advantage on block for another f+3,2 follow up that could only be interrupted by an armor move or taking the second hit to escape. b+2~ndc was +20 on block, hit mid, was a block infinite, and could only be escaped by jumping out after taking the hit. Also, d+4~ndc was good pressure with old blockstun, nomad dash cancels built more meter and he had enhanced fireball glitch
Kano - Kano was at his best when knives had a very fast recovery and the up ball had a 7F start up. More importantly, the up ball was only -8 on block. The combination of these two special moves led to a traditional yet very effective zoning game. The up ball, in particular, was a god-like defensive move as jumping and pressuring Kano was very difficult. You could also use the move offensively by checking those opponents who try to jump out or interrupt your strings. Up ball acted like a safe HP Shoryuken versus many characters.
Kitana - while not as broken as the rest of the characters listed, she had limited or no damage reduction on fans and EX fans, which lead to high damaging juggles. Furthermore, fans used to do more damage, and the last hit of 1,1,2 was an overhead.
Kung Lao - Spin was incredibly hard to launch punish on block because of the block stun, pushback, and recovery it had. Low hat on block was -6 and could only be punished in a just-frame manner. Being off by just 1 in frame in trying to poke punish would usually result in being counter punished by his spin. Low hat gave +10 advantage on hit which lead to free unavoidable offense afterwards. Teleport 2 gave advantage on block for free follow-ups and pressure. Teleport 3 lead to an infinite which was 2~teleport, 3~repeat. Enhanced hat toss on grounded opponents gave a free damage reset in the form of a jump in, this could be repeated up to 2 times for 100% damaging combos. Spin and dive kicks had no damage scaling so Kung Lao's basic BNB mid screen was around 40% while his wall BNBs were in the upper 50s. Add in x-ray, hit confirms, and meter usage and Kung Lao could get right below 80% against the wall.
Quan Chi - Sky drop gave a free safe jump on hit, enhanced rune on hit gave more advantage. Quan Chi had an infinite with trance, where after it connected he could whiff a move to reset it.
Raiden - teleport had less recovery frames and b+3,1,2 and 3,3,4 were +1 on block. Superman had an 8F start up. Vicinity blast was +14 on block, so repeating 2,2~VB would result in a block infinite combo. However, EX teleport was not as good as the current version is. Nonetheless, this version of Raiden must have been one of the lamest characters in fighting game history.
Sindel - 4 has 14 frames of start up, excellent range, and hits mid. 4~levitate cancel on block (+20) OR hit (+30) was an infinite that was inescapable once it made contact. Sindel had access to 100% combos and infinite damage resets with the broken properties on yell. She could easily land and combo into yell from 4 (true links) and then do a levitate cancel to reset the yell properites. However, her 100% combos and yell resets were just icing on the cake as she just needed to touch you once with 4 to end the round.
Skarlet - Skarlet had the ability to rapidly toss daggers similarly to Sareena in Mortal Kombat Armageddon. In fact, the daggers came out so fast they would interrupt the start up animation of several projectiles and teleports. A lot of characters could not approach her. Also, a glitch also allowed her to juggle after the slide.
Sonya - Sonya was the queen of infinites as she had a ton of various hit stun and block infinites. 4~msc, instant dive kick~4~msc, repeat, could be repeated as much as desired to reach infinite amounts of damage in combos usually resutling in 100%. d+4~msc~repeat was a block infinite in the most threatening manner of footsies. 2~msc~repeat and 4~msc~repeat were unbreakbale and inescapable block and hit infinites once they got going. 1,1,2~mcs~repeat, 3,1,2~mcs~repeat, and 2,1~msc~repeat were all block infinites that jailed the opponent if they were caught in stand block.
Who was the most broken character in your opinion?
force ball bug.
