Return Aquaman's from the deep to injustice 1's

[jcbowie]

I think AM if not outright looses to every character that can punish his FtD from 3/4 of the screen at least he is severely limited. Swamp Thing for example wins the mu easy: they both have reach but he is outdamaged and the clone call can punish FtD from anywhere this shutting down one of the most important tools. Manta also beats him and a big reason is his shark attack being a really punish to FTD. Superman and girl are also loosing matchups, their space control is superior and have better options up close. RH can negate trait with insta launching bomb-setups and such. And yea, Ivy has been a bad my since launch and during that time AM was admittedly overpowered.

He is in this weird space right now, he is a defensive character that has to be aggressive to other defense style characters but lacks the tools to do so and rendering him useless by default in those matchups. He does fine against rush heavier characters yes but only if they don't have an answer to FTD, which they often do.

Worst part is he could be pretty potent with slight changes but he'll never get them because of the used to be OP stigma and 'boring' playstyle so meh, whatever really.

@Error Haven't really heard that, after patch I don't really see how it could be much worse than 5-5. I would be glad if a HQ player could explain.

Why do you think Manta and Ivy beat him? The fact that he can't as carelessly throw out FTD's doesn't necessarily mean that he loses a MU. Neither of those characters can punish FTD fullscreen. Ivy's footsies can't even come close to AM's and her damage is lackluster, and even with her crazy trait she can't really zone him too effectively, *and* his trait helps him get out of her mix. Manta gets okay damage, but in order to get in he has to space his f2's pretty well, so if you walk back and use FTD at appropriate distances to bait a whiffed approach then you can take Manta; Manta also has to keep you standing if he wants his really good setups and damage, so again AM's trait helps a ton.

I feel like RH could be closer to even too, AM has the tools to keep him out pretty effectively. If he gets you in HTB setups on knockdown it might be kinda challenging but I think AM has the neutral to contend with him.

I don't know what changes would be good for AM besides making some of his pokes slightly higher damaging? But I'm still not convinced he even needs that. Although I don't know why Aqua vs. Harley wouldn't be 5-5, his trait is probably annoying to deal with but that doesn't seem like a MU breaking thing...

 

[jcbowie]

I think relying too much on his FTD just isn't the best idea, and I feel like that's the trap playstyle that most AM players right now fall into, and consequently what makes everyone think that AM is bad.

 

[TyCarter35]

No just change his low scoop to have better launching properties cuz his BnBs are janky af. Also now that FTD doesn't launch. It being minus 24 makes it borderline unusable in some matchups especially when he is forced to chase even something like making FTD -19 or smt like it was in IGAU would be fair cuz negative 24 for a zoning tool that is too punishable does Aquaman no favors. That's like two changes that would make him fare a lot better without putting him into broken status

 

[Jelan]

Why do you think Manta and Ivy beat him? The fact that he can't as carelessly throw out FTD's doesn't necessarily mean that he loses a MU. Neither of those characters can punish FTD fullscreen. Ivy's footsies can't even come close to AM's and her damage is lackluster, and even with her crazy trait she can't really zone him too effectively, *and* his trait helps him get out of her mix. Manta gets okay damage, but in order to get in he has to space his f2's pretty well, so if you walk back and use FTD at appropriate distances to bait a whiffed approach then you can take Manta; Manta also has to keep you standing if he wants his really good setups and damage, so again AM's trait helps a ton.

I feel like RH could be closer to even too, AM has the tools to keep him out pretty effectively. If he gets you in HTB setups on knockdown it might be kinda challenging but I think AM has the neutral to contend with him.

I don't know what changes would be good for AM besides making some of his pokes slightly higher damaging? But I'm still not convinced he even needs that. Although I don't know why Aqua vs. Harley wouldn't be 5-5, his trait is probably annoying to deal with but that doesn't seem like a MU breaking thing...

Ivy's drill can keep AM locked down better than most other characters and she has bark skin which negates chip. Couple this with her trait and AM has to inch his way in and when he is there the chip, which is still a good % of his damage, is negated. Couple that with the fact that aside from a really good D1 he has barely anything close range to make you respect him. Ivy is not pretty.

Black Manta can shark attack punish your FTD from very long range making it be more in his favour by default. He can teleport trident toss on reaction and in general can use jetpack to maneuver around your keep away tools. On wake-up he can stuff any special you throw out and the trait again makes you take like half a combos damage still while keeping you standing which you yourself wrote is what BM wants anyway. Baiting f2 is useful, but due to movement speed differences it's in Manta's favour.

RH can keep you in check with trait shot from anywhere on screen and bomb placements can make trident rush tricky to use due to it's length. He can also lunge punish b2 and f2 at least on certain ranges if I remember correctly.

You mentioned AM players relying FTD too much, maybe you're right but what alternative is there? F2 and B2 are great moves yes and moving around is important to bait as you mentioned regarding BM, but that is his best tool and if the opponent has ways around it he is crippled in that MU.


For making him better:
-Do something with scoop to make his combos consistent and not a chore to pull off
-D2 back to pre patch: his AA combos are much less dangerous than they were the longer start-up and shorter active window hurts his defense
-Make FTD less minus, -15 to -19 somewhere: seeing how the reward for it is not half a healthcare anymore there is no reason for it to be so unsafe. Especially since it is a very important tool in general.
Would be nice but meh: -Trident rush pre patch damage: he gets less combo opportunities and builds less meter, I don't understand why it had to be lowered along with the other nerfs

 

[kingjack21]

am i the only one that thinks aquaman is fine?

He is almost there but if he is supposed to punish you, you're supposed to get punished. Not that all Aquaman players rely on D1 TR or B123 Trident Toss. If you do unsafe stuff, you deserve to eat that full combo damage and the buff on scoop will do that. It's nowhere near prepatch damage, but it's fine we'll take it. I actually don't care if you can d2 or not after mb scoop coz I think 320 damage is fine also.. I just want a consistent combo to hurt you when you do something unsafe. I'm fine with everything else but that. Also why couldn't they just scale the damage after tentacle strike if it did so much damage? Kinda like they did DN Tanya and her pogo back in the day. I mean make something like tentacle strike trident toss do same damage as current mb tentacle strike ‍. Or make his bnbs prepatch do the 320 damage he's supposed to be hitting now. What was wrong with that?

 

[jcbowie]

Ivy's drill can keep AM locked down better than most other characters and she has bark skin which negates chip. Couple this with her trait and AM has to inch his way in and when he is there the chip, which is still a good % of his damage, is negated. Couple that with the fact that aside from a really good D1 he has barely anything close range to make you respect him. Ivy is not pretty.

Black Manta can shark attack punish your FTD from very long range making it be more in his favour by default. He can teleport trident toss on reaction and in general can use jetpack to maneuver around your keep away tools. On wake-up he can stuff any special you throw out and the trait again makes you take like half a combos damage still while keeping you standing which you yourself wrote is what BM wants anyway. Baiting f2 is useful, but due to movement speed differences it's in Manta's favour.

RH can keep you in check with trait shot from anywhere on screen and bomb placements can make trident rush tricky to use due to it's length. He can also lunge punish b2 and f2 at least on certain ranges if I remember correctly.

You mentioned AM players relying FTD too much, maybe you're right but what alternative is there? F2 and B2 are great moves yes and moving around is important to bait as you mentioned regarding BM, but that is his best tool and if the opponent has ways around it he is crippled in that MU.


For making him better:
-Do something with scoop to make his combos consistent and not a chore to pull off
-D2 back to pre patch: his AA combos are much less dangerous than they were the longer start-up and shorter active window hurts his defense
-Make FTD less minus, -15 to -19 somewhere: seeing how the reward for it is not half a healthcare anymore there is no reason for it to be so unsafe. Especially since it is a very important tool in general.
Would be nice but meh: -Trident rush pre patch damage: he gets less combo opportunities and builds less meter, I don't understand why it had to be lowered along with the other nerfs

Cheers, I forgot about the bark skin buff, that probably is a huge problem with Ivy. I stand by the idea that you shouldn't rely on FTD in that matchup, and I think his footsies and air attacks give him some help up close, especially considering their relatively comparable combo damage, but I suppose it sounds like it's in her favor.

With Manta I still feel like you can walk back for a bit and reserve FTD for fullscreen pressure or even to try and bait teleports for a solid punish, even with the d2 nerf AM gets an easy squeezy punish on teleport EX or non. Plus, AM's aerials are a good way to get around f2 approaches, jump back attacks get around walk speed disadvantage for whiff punishing. Manta's got good oki pressure but to keep it advantageous he has to spend a bar and put himself at slight distance, coincidentally at the exact range where AM thrives. A lot of Manta's spacing tools up close are negated by AM's quick and strong footsies, f2 becomes his best tool and once the Manta realizes that AM can definitely stuff out the others you can start to predict f2. I still don't know that I'd call it a loss for AM.

RH you're totally right, I sometimes forget how OD his spacing is and how great lethal lunge is as a punish.

I honestly like the buff ideas besides the FTD change, his combos are already nerfed and shouldn't be such a pill, and his AA's aren't necessarily hard but it shouldn't be such a tricky reaction timing. I still don't think FTD should be changed, I think it's situational and should stay that way, but it wouldn't be bad if it got made safer. It would just mean more players using it as a crutch because they can't space his normals as well.

I actually wouldn't even mind the trident rush damage change if his meter build got reduced...

 

[gibster13]

Why they didn't just nerf his dmg I will never know, arguably weirdest thing I have seen

 

[jcbowie]

Okay, after sort of "putting my money where my mouth is" and labbing/playing exclusively Aquaman for the last month or so, there's a few conclusions that I think are pretty well based. This is totally my humble opinion, but this is what I think about Aquaman overall.

-He definitely should be buffed at least a little bit, he's a defensive footsie-based character but based on his damage output and the fact that he is outfootsied by characters like Atrocitus, he really should have either his range or his damage improved.

-FTD in particular needs some kind of adjustment to the point of safety, I don't think it should ever be reverted to its' vanilla launching state but it should at least be safe if it's not reverted. BA should not get to punish it with black magic is the basic reference point, that's really stupid based on how it acts now.

-If you want to talk about tier (which I think is pointless but a lot of people like it) I wouldn't call him "upper mid-tier" like others seem to do. Aquaman feels definitively low-mid tier, not quite Deadshot uselessness but still very weak. He definitely suffers in neutral, and (as many have pointed out) neutral is probably the most important aspect of competitiveness of a character in this game.

-This is the most crazy point I reached. Based on a lot of experience in both lab and matches, I honestly think he has an advantage over Catwoman. I hate to rush and call it 6-4 but honestly I think he beats Catwoman to at least some degree and absolutely I love it, I love this matchup. The best aspect of his game is his meter build and I think that he has better ways of contending with Catwoman's footsie tools and neutral than a lot of characters.

Basically, he needs either a frame buff or a damage buff IMO. His mid-starter strings should get the hypothetical frame buff, as he already has OD plus frames on a couple string but he needs more to have legitimate pressure.

I think it would be better, however, if he just got a universal slight damage boost on all of his moves and a universal reduction on scaling of moves, particularly his d2 and his b2. That would make his very quick and incidental damage much better and allow him to function well as a defensive character in this meta.