should 'ease of use' be considered for character balancing?

[actionalex]

If a character is "easy or difficult to use" in terms of input complexity, connecting combos, number of moves, etc, would you consider that to be something that should be intertwined with character balancing? I remember soul calibur 5 having different stats for characters and ease of use was one of them. In your opinion, would you consider this to be a 'real' stat for a character?

 

[FL Rushdown]

No. Not much experience with fighting games in particular but competitive games should be balanced for high level play only. How easy something is to do means very little when you're talking about professionals.

 

[Gh0sty]

No. "Ease of use" is completely subjective and should never be taken into consideration when attempting to balance a game. That's an incredibly short sighted strategy and at best, caters to the lowest common denominator.

 

[vicious1024]

No. I honestly feel it never should.

This mentality can lead to characters being preemptively nerfed before other characters have fully-developed game plans, which can sometimes end up being more effective than the easier characters.