What's new

Breakthrough - Sub-Zero SZ 4Oct patch thread.

Lokheit

Noob
  • Subzero - Towards+FP now has 10 startup frames (down from 15)
  • Subzero - Towards+FP,BP is now -2 on block (down from +2)
  • Subzero - Down+FP now has 7 startup frames (down from 9)
  • Subzero - Icy Slide now has 2 hits of armor
  • Subzero - Frost Bomb no longer has armor and has 10 less recovery frames on hit and miss
  • Subzero - Ice Burst is now -5 on block (up from -10)
  • Subzero - Down+BP now has 11 startup frames (down from 12) and 4 active frames (up from 3)
  • Subzero - fixed a bug where an opponent would drop out of a frozen reaction if Subzero blocked an attack on the same frame
  • Subzero (Cryomancer) - Towards+BK,BP,FP+FK now does the same animation and damage as the other variations
  • Subzero (Cryomancer) - added new special move Polar Puncture & Arctic Assault which functions as a command grab which can be special cancelled out of on hit
  • Subzero (Cryomancer) - Frost Hammer & Crushing Hammer do 2 less damage
  • Subzero (Cryomancer) - Towards+FP,BP is now -7 on block (down from 0)
  • Subzero (Cryomancer) - Towards+FP,BP,BP is now -14 on block (down from -9)
  • Subzero (Unbreakable) - Barrier Of Ice now has 25 less recovery frames
  • Subzero (Unbreakable) - Barrier Of Frost now has 15 less recovery frames
  • Subzero (Unbreakable) - Ice Burst & Frost Bomb have increased pushback when Ice Aura or Frozen Aura are active
  • Subzero (Grandmaster) - Ice Statue no longer has armor
Personal commentary for each variation:

General:

Frost Bomb loses armor (like most launchers), but has less recovery on hit (so better juggles) or miss. Ice Burst (meterless version) is now -5 on block down from -10 (safest string end now).

The move generally has some good applications BUT it's no longer an anti-air because it lost its armor, a bit of a nerf and a bit of a buff here.

D1 being 7 frames is good for all variations: the klone-less variations will benefit from a faster poke (it had no use before with D3 and D4 being as fast as D1) and GM will benefit for its corner juggles, specially against female hitboxes as a faster D1 increases the juggling window.

The uppercut is slightly better but nothing to write home about I think (and I don't see any mention on Cryo's uppercut, probably staying slow). At least he still has S1 as a good anti-air and they said it would be easier now to hit airborne opponents.

F1 is now much faster (from 15 to 10 frames) BUT all of his followups (specially the Cryo specific ones) are now worse on block. I think this mostly helps GM with his juggles (specially combined with the faster D1) as it's 5 frames more to land the ender for the klone setup. Honestly I was hoping for Cryo to have it removed and replaced with the rest of the F122 string (so it would start with the sword), not sure how the string being faster but now more negative will play out for him (it looks worse for his after knockdown gameplay to be honest).

Icy Slide getting 2 hits of armor I guess is fine, but the move was really fast anyway, not sure how it will play out. I guess it can help against trap setups.

Grand Master:

Indirect buff: Alien can't get his tail through the klone.

Indirect nerf: A lot of characters got multi-hit armor, so klone setups will be easier to escape now.

Overall as mentioned above he will get easier juggles thanks to faster D1 and F1 (both featured on his best corner combo setups) and probably won't have so many problems against females.

You will need to be very careful and sometimes try to bait opponents because a lot of them will be able to get out of the corner now.

He also lost the armor on EX Klone (along with most armored moves across the cast) so he can't make some cancels safe anymore.

Overal I think he's more honest and fair now and the corner game isn't as dominating as it used to be so he will be fine.

Cryomancer:

The command grab is an interesting addition but here are a couple of points:

- The grab damage is lower than it used to be 5% (12.5% if canceled into hammer) but at least you can compensate a bit as now you can use B12 in many combos where you used F42 before. The meterless damage will drop only a bit, but the damage scaling is also worse now (looking at the numbers on the screen, it went from 85% to 75%) so meter burn combos will have a damage reduction.

- Both hammers got their damage down by 2 points, which combined with the damage drop and heavier damage scaling on the grab brings overal damage down.

Also I want to point out that there is no mention on EX Grab having armor or not (will need to check in the lab) or if EX Hammer got extra armor hits (it would make more sense for this slow move than for the fast slide, but probably it even lost the only armor hit as it's a launcher).

F12 even with the faster F1 still is still a slow neutral tool and now F12 and F122 are both worse on block (no more neutral advantage after knockdown jump setup which was an essential part of his game).

Cryo didn't have its neutral game fixed (I was really hoping the F1 would've been a sword starting string) and combo damage is going down, but at least now he has a faster poke and a grab to tick throw so finally he is more of an offensive character (he never was before, he was just a punisher and a bad one). I will be labbing him really hard during the comming weeks (will have to wait a couple of days as I got issues to attend in the comming days though), I'm not sure if this will be so good (other grapplers have better pokes, better neutral and better damage at the same time) but I'm excited to re-learn him and maybe I'm surprised with this new Cryomancer so time will tell and I hope his other tools compensate for worse buttons than most grapplers.

The EX grab and hammer having armor (won't know until the patch is available) would be huge factors.

EDIT: The fact that most armored moves either don't have armor anymore or have multi armor, makes Air Hammer even worse than before, so if it had no use at all, now it's just decoration lol.

Unbreakable:

The faster recovery on the parry is nice and the EX one will be really hard to punish so that's a good thing. Pushback on aura enhanced burst and bomb combined with burst being less negative could give mini block jails from F4xxEXAura.

They mentioned that the aura slide retaining its armor made it a great move now that most launchers are losing their armor, but I want to remind everyone that the damage scale on that move sucks a lot, so we will see if the lack of armor on launchers across the cast makes this one so good or not.


Overal I think GM is now more honest and Cryo and UB are both a bit better, but just a bit and there were compensation nerf bits here and there, which is a good thing as I didn't want something over the top, but time will tell if it's enough in the new meta. I want to take some time analyzing the whole picture with the state of other characters, I'm not sure yet about Cryo's and UB's position now but at least I will have a lot of fun in the lab.
 
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I think UB needed more buffs, just like balanced and ancestral. Anyways, I agree that GM is weaker now, however due to characters now getting out of the corner easier or more consistently then I honestly think this patch hurts GM a lot. I mean a lot of characters have good corner and neutral game, you take away corner from GM and he's done. I hope I'm wrong though.
 

Lokheit

Noob
Btw, I give you some new Cryomancer BnBs, no need for the patch to be released, I calculated the numbers as the stream gave us the new damage and damage scaling for the grab (5 damage, 0.75 damage scaling) and I know the damage scaling for the other moves (factoring that the hammer got it damage reduced by 2):

(PP stands for Polar Puncture)

- B2(run), F42xxPPxxHammer = 25.36% (rounded by the screen to 25).

Huge damage drop for his main midscreen OH combo (technically you can only use B12 instead of F42 if it comes from a JIP so that's why I'm using the F42 version here, if you could and not counting the JIP, the damage would be 27.838, rounded up to 28, counting the JIP 30.05, you will see it mostly as the JIP following a hammer knockdown midscreen, note that the execution level is higher than with F4).

- F122, F122, B12xxPPxxHammer = 30.11%

This will be your followup after a midscreen freeze (After 111xxIceball, JIP... the damage would be 31.76, rounded up to 32 by the screen, the highest meterless damage you will get).

Again a damage drop but at least you can crack the 30 barrier. The positive part is that the harder to execute (and usually bugged, randomly throwing the opponent the other way) F122,B2 is no longer more damaging as you can only follow up with F4, at least midscreen, so the double F122 is the way to go (be careful with the timing of the second F122 as the F1 is now faster).

- Corner: B2, B2, D1, B12xxPPxxHammer = 34.82% (rounded up by the screen to 35%).

This one drops a bit too from what it used to be. This is also your main followup after any freeze.

Meter combos will see a bigger damage reduction than these ones as they feature more grabs and hammers (both of them got less damage and the grab worse damage scaling).
 
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Toodrunk2combo

Sub and kotal FTW
I guess these changes aren't too bad. Not that we really have a choice anyway. I missed the stream but I'm excited to see how cryo plays out now.
 

crosshair271

Sub-Xerox
Sub has one of the only if possible the only armored launchers left because of Unbreakable.
Any Aura + EX Slide. Double armor and freezes them for a followup.

Apparently he also has some unlisted changes. I'm guessing the rest of the cast does too.

Hot take but I feel unbreakable is the best variation now. Also ice burst is like 0 on block with aura, not just pushback.
EX burst in all variations launches higher so midscreen you can run up and do b12 freeze. I guess that's compensation for having no armor lolol
 

Tanno

The Fantasy is the Reality of the Mind
I only hope they fix the glitches to avoid future troubles with the other characters. With the new stuff there my mind thinks of new kombos. Did you read pimpimjim's posts? Those are the other notes they didn't note down in the official patch notes.
 

snort

Noob
Aliens tail now gets frozen by the clone, alright thats cool, but what about D'Vorah's tail??? Her down 3 range is crazy too. smh
 

Tanno

The Fantasy is the Reality of the Mind
I could think for Cryo this combo:

JIP, B12xxIceball, JIP, 242~F122xxPPxxHammer.

I don't know if the PP can connect with the B12/123/242/etc strings, so can someone test it for me?
 

Lokheit

Noob
I could think for Cryo this combo:

JIP, B12xxIceball, JIP, 242~F112xxPPxxHammer.

I don't know if the PP can connect with the B12/123/242/etc strings, so can someone test it for me?
F112 is not a thing. If you mean 112 you can't cancel it, if you mean F122 it won't juggle correctly after 242. Also 242 isn't used on Cryomancer's combos because of its damage scaling. I can assure you the ones I posted are his new main meterless BnBs. After an iceball you want to do the double F122 one.
 

Tanno

The Fantasy is the Reality of the Mind
F112 is not a thing. If you mean 112 you can't cancel it, if you mean F122 it won't juggle correctly after 242. Also 242 isn't used on Cryomancer's combos because of its damage scaling. I can assure you the ones I posted are his new main meterless BnBs. After an iceball you want to do the double F122 one.
So therefore, I could change it into:

JIP, B12xxIceball, JIP, F122, F122, 1, B12xxPPxxHammer.

Or, you could add this:

JIP, B12xxPPxxIceball, JIP, F122, F122, 1, B12xxPPxxHammer.

Like I told you, I don't know if they can connect with the PP, except of Hammer, which is confirmed to connect smoothly.
 

Lokheit

Noob
So therefore, I could change it into:

JIP, B12xxIceball, JIP, F122, F122, 1, B12xxPPxxHammer.

Or, you could add this:

JIP, B12xxPPxxIceball, JIP, F122, F122, 1, B12xxPPxxHammer.

Like I told you, I don't know if they can connect with the PP, except of Hammer, which is confirmed to connect smoothly.
You can't connect meterless Iceball from PP, and the extra "1" would drop the whole thing (After the first launch F122 is already hitting 3 times which affects gravity a lot) so probably won't be possible.
 

Tanno

The Fantasy is the Reality of the Mind
You can't connect meterless Iceball from PP, and the extra "1" would drop the whole thing (After the first launch F122 is already hitting 3 times which affects gravity a lot) so probably won't be possible.
I see. OK.
 

hkriderz

Lin Kuei Scum, yellow robot enthusiast
My overall opinion of these changes is they're pretty reasonable.

F1 and d1 buffs will significantly help his corner combos and maybe even finallly 100% gurantee a f1 on females after close clone shatters.

D1 7 frames. Thank you Paulo.
D2 11 frames. Not much, but i guess thanks?... Wish it was 9.

Frost bomb recovers faster and PPJ said in the discussion that we can do b12 ice ball after it. This is amazing and it will completely change and help his corner and midscreen combos. Nice change. No armor sadly, but that's universal.

Slide 2 hits of armor. Good.

db1 -5. We finally have a safe ender. Halleluyah. His links still have gaps besides f4 tho. I wish b12 was gapless however :/

No Ice clone armor. Hurts, but its fine. Still comes out fast. Safe. Scared of Liu Kang now because he will have a field day with sub tho since his only armor is -22 and he cant ex clone and freeze his gaps ;_;

Double armor. Well boyz say goodbye to d4 clone armor breaks or Tom's corner setups with B2. They are of yesterday. But all the armors don't launch so we are good. Their safety bothers me though. Also Kitana still has hers. No worries.

F4 frost bomb no longer breaks armor as well since sub used to take a hit to break two hit armor. Now that's non-existent. So we have to respect wakeups now. Boo xD

Alien's tail is now gone. Chop chop still beats the close clone, but his pokes don't so that's major plus for sub.Also they never mentioned Dvorah's ovipositors. Prolly still disjointed.

Anyways, sub has gotten buffed and nerfed. His winning mu became almost 5-5 or slight adv sub, and his losing match ups seem pretty much the same. I told y'all. Sonya's grenades still rape the klone, takeda, Jin, and prolly Dvorah still rape the clone. We shall see tommorow though.

Overall, nice patch. GGs NRS
 

Lokheit

Noob
Also 242 isn't used on Cryomancer's combos
I just realized that, while 242 won't be used during combos, it now could be of tremendous use for Cryo on one condition:

If 24 can tick-throw (will need to test this when it's available, frame data looks like it could be possible) then it would be a guaranteed throw on hit or block (you can always dash cancel on block though) because the second hit already puts the opponent in the air (the main reason for 242 affecting gravity more than B2, it's a juggle from the second hit). If it's possible it's going to juicy (but again, need to wait for the patch and maybe it's not a tick throw).

EDIT: Ok just saw that it jails into 242 which is 19 frames so probably won't be a tick throw, hopes shattered lol.
 
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Jeffrey Wolf

YouTube: Jeffrey B Wolf
Just realized that most of the Sub players are here and not the other thread. My thoughts so far:

For the most part, what I expected for Unbreakable. He didn't get a few things I would have really liked (I'm looking at you DOT damage), but the lack of armored launchers means that Parry (i.e. Barrier) is super good now and that's not even taking into consideration it's faster recovery, or the fact that he retained the Icy Slide launcher, which has two hits of armor?? The GM match up just got even better for Unbreakable. I'm sad that F12 is gone as a frame trap now though. Looks like I gotta get on my F4~Aura game.

_________

Yeah...the more I think about it...the only character in the game with a 1 bar armored (2 hits!) launcher that travels 3/4 of the screen, under projectiles, is low, and starts up in 9 frames? He just needs Aura. So Aura is being valued as much as a bar of meter. Damn, that's good. Heck, I wonder if down the road they'll even nerf it.

Plus, Parry in the neutral is almost like an armored launcher...

I'm starting to see what Pimpinjim is saying.

__________

I'm definitely excited. Burst was basically a safe ender anyway, but it's nice that it's actually safe now, lol.

As for Sonic, really? I wouldn't have thought Cryo was his cup of tea. I'll be very interested to see how Cryo shakes out though. At first I was worried that they had simultaneously buffed and then nerfed to oblivion his F12 footsie string, but since it can be cancelled into Burst, it's not too bad, even if there's a gap. Though, you're going to have to be on point to either Burst for safety or continue the string for the launch. Seems like an unnecessary nerf to me.

Speaking of launchers though, Cryo will have probably the highest damaging 1 bar launching game move in the game with EN Hammer. Sub had good armor before, but now? Wow.
 

Lokheit

Noob
Speaking of launchers though, Cryo will have probably the highest damaging 1 bar launching game move in the game with EN Hammer. Sub had good armor before, but now? Wow.
We need confirmation about the status of the Hammer armor, if it's not gone (it isn't as dangerous as other armors because it's really easy to break) then it's very good (maybe that's why the nerfed the damage to 6). We also need to know if the EX Grab is armored or not. Those 2 having armor or not would have a big impact on his final status.
 

Jeffrey Wolf

YouTube: Jeffrey B Wolf
@Lokheit, if your calculations are correct, which I have no doubt they are, that will put Cryo's damage just a bit above Unbreakable, which is...surprising. I guess they're really counting on the command grab to give him worthwhile options, along with a faster F12 footsie string.
 

Jeffrey Wolf

YouTube: Jeffrey B Wolf
We need confirmation about the status of the Hammer armor, if it's not gone (it isn't as dangerous as other armors because it's really easy to break) then it's very good (maybe that's why the nerfed the damage to 6). We also need to know if the EX Grab is armored or not. Those 2 having armor or not would have a big impact on his final status.
Agreed.
 

Braindead

I want Kronika to step on my face
The Cryo nerfs were absolutely needed to counter the command grab. You people are seriously underestimating a launching command grab. Sun God is one of my mains and I'm telling you if command grab launches... Oh boy lol
 

Jeffrey Wolf

YouTube: Jeffrey B Wolf
And I suppose it is a command grab that leads to a combo if you spend a bar, which is rather insane. Any idea how much that will do? For example, command grab~EN Hammer, etc.
 

Braindead

I want Kronika to step on my face
And I suppose it is a command grab that leads to a combo if you spend a bar, which is rather insane. Any idea how much that will do? For example, command grab~EN Hammer, etc.
Yeah cmd grab into ex hammer into full combo. But heavy scaling. You'll get about 24% for 1 bar.