Hitoshura
Head Cage
I'm creating this thread separately because I feel that this topic has become a big talking point as of late, and I don't wish for it and the responses to be fragmented and buried within the general discussion thread. This will be a relatively long read, so I do apologize in advance, but I feel like this is something that needs to be discussed.
Mustard recently released a tier list that is based on character placements in tournament (mainly combo breaker), tools, and how well said character(s) work within the mechanics of the game. At the beginning of the video he states that this list is subject to change a lot and will change as long as the game is played. Below is a link to the exact video and the time stamp where he starts discussing about Noob Saibot.
Mustard's Post-Combo Breaker Tier List
Here is the image of the tier list he made:
Mustard makes a lot of valid points that I agree with. Noob Saibot is a good character on paper. He has some of the best pokes in the game, good neutral game, a fast hitting mid at 9 frames that leads into a full combo, and his damage equates to the damage one would receive when hit by a truck. The issue is that when put into practice there are things that are holding him back from being as good as he is on paper. I've spent many hours playing this game, maining our lord of shadows, and will be competing in Defend the North this upcoming July. It will more than likely be one of the only majors I attend and that's if I decide not to attend Winter Brawl this winter. I see the pros and the cons playing this character. Most characters have cons, but some cons can have detrimental effects on the overall state of the match.
What are some of Noob's cons?
He needs another low starter. I suggested f4 be special cancelable because a move that was similar to it was special cancelable in MK9. What I find funny was that in MK9, Noob's b1,2,1,4 had an overhead move in it. In MK9 he suffered from weak midscreen damage, lack of corner carry, and lack of damage in the corner in contrast to the rest of the cast when not using meter. In MK11, Noob has corner carry, but suffers from consistent damage midscreen. Noob has corner damage that exceeds everyone's in the game, but they removed the mixup options he once had, so he has no way of netting such damage. It's as though they solved the issues we had in MK9, but then took away some of his strengths. Instead of getting fixes we received a trade. His mixups in MK9 were fair because his one overhead was in the middle of the b1,2,1,4 string and his only low was the start of f4,4; so one could block Noob low all day, but just adjust to a high block to block the one hit that was overhead in his b1,2,1,4 string.
What good is high damage if you can't consistently land it? In a game where a lot of strings are safe and our best way to land damage is based on whiff normals and special moves, landing damage becomes increasingly hard when players become better defensively. I'd rather have scaled down damage to have Noob's ability to open up the opponent again. Again, his mixups in MK9 were fair and no where near the level of MKX's 50/50 coin flip extravaganza, or Sonya's Mixup's in the game.
If there any other general issues with Noob that aren't variation specific let me know and I can update the OP with them.
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The philosophy behind the variation system is to give characters an alternative options and tools that allow them to approach a match differently. This can help if a character has a bad matchup against a certain character in one variation. The other variation(s) could have tools to help assist in that bad matchup. Some characters do not get this luxury. Some characters have tools to handle situations and are cut by the limbs and separated into to different variations, leaving the character feeling incomplete. Sound familiar? Y'all remember MKX?
MK11 was designed to have the option of customizing ones own variation and playing the character as they saw fit. In a competitive environment it would of worked similarly to trading card games such as: Magic the Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, Vanguard, Pokemon, and et cetera, where after a match players are given time to look at their side deck which consists of 15 cards that can be used to cover holes in a decks overall gameplan that another deck can expose, or to cripple a deck that performs better than it. This would have been done in a similar manner if customized variations where allowed in the competitive scene for MK11. Instead we're left with the same problem that was in MKX, but with less variations.
Noob's alternative variation, Seeing Double, suffers from this problem. it's supposed to be a zoning variation, but has problems of its own that makes it unusable in a competitive environment.
It seems like this variation fails to operate properly and just wont cut it. So, our boy Noob is left with his only viable variation, Dark Sabbath, and doesn't have the luxury of have an alternative way of handling bad matchups.
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Noob struggles in the neutral game and is slowly falling out of favor on the tier list because of these issues. There are characters who can do what Noob does, but better. Baraka and Kabal come to mind. Kabal can whiff punish well, rushdown and restand the opponent, but does low damage to compensate for it. Baraka is a good punisher with better reaching normals and posses good neutral game, better than Noob's in my opinion, with consistent midscreen and corner damage/ Plus, he can consistently utilize his krushing blows. Some user sproclaim if the top tiered characters are nerfed that there is a good chance he'll perform better. As much as I would like to believe that, there are still characters who hinder our character to play neutral, so I do believe said proclamation, but I don't think it will make him budge much.
@M2Dave has stated that Chris G has dropped Noob in favor of Scorpion, Honeybee is starting to play more D'vorah because of newly found potential, Waz is exclusively using Jade now, @TheGlow mentioned that Toxin is using Skarlet and Kabal now. This is looking bad. Real bad. I never understood the point of a variation system if NRS is just going to handle it like they're handling it now. I personally think that there shouldn't be any variations. That a character should just have their options when picked, much like MK9, or other fighting games, but this is a topic for another discussion and I'm digressing from the point at hand.
What is in store for the future of Noob Saibot? Will NRS do anything to alleviate the issues he has as a character? Will they balance the game and fix the issues that contradict the philosophy of the neutral game? Will they just do what they want and make a "hype" game where characters have tools that contradict how you were selling the game? I'd like to know everyone's opinions on this. Let's get this discussion started and bring some life back into the Noob forums!
Mustard recently released a tier list that is based on character placements in tournament (mainly combo breaker), tools, and how well said character(s) work within the mechanics of the game. At the beginning of the video he states that this list is subject to change a lot and will change as long as the game is played. Below is a link to the exact video and the time stamp where he starts discussing about Noob Saibot.
Mustard's Post-Combo Breaker Tier List
Here is the image of the tier list he made:
Mustard makes a lot of valid points that I agree with. Noob Saibot is a good character on paper. He has some of the best pokes in the game, good neutral game, a fast hitting mid at 9 frames that leads into a full combo, and his damage equates to the damage one would receive when hit by a truck. The issue is that when put into practice there are things that are holding him back from being as good as he is on paper. I've spent many hours playing this game, maining our lord of shadows, and will be competing in Defend the North this upcoming July. It will more than likely be one of the only majors I attend and that's if I decide not to attend Winter Brawl this winter. I see the pros and the cons playing this character. Most characters have cons, but some cons can have detrimental effects on the overall state of the match.
What are some of Noob's cons?
- His b1,1+3 is minus on block to the point where a chunk of the cast can punish it, whether with a full combo or just a special move that provides them with advantage.
- His Shadow Tackle is only usable in combo as it is a slow traveling projectile that disappears when Noob is hit. It can not be used in the projectile war because it can not trade.
- Noob has no way of opening up the opponent for damage and has to rely on the opponent whiffing their own moves or block a highly punishable string in order to deal damage.
He needs another low starter. I suggested f4 be special cancelable because a move that was similar to it was special cancelable in MK9. What I find funny was that in MK9, Noob's b1,2,1,4 had an overhead move in it. In MK9 he suffered from weak midscreen damage, lack of corner carry, and lack of damage in the corner in contrast to the rest of the cast when not using meter. In MK11, Noob has corner carry, but suffers from consistent damage midscreen. Noob has corner damage that exceeds everyone's in the game, but they removed the mixup options he once had, so he has no way of netting such damage. It's as though they solved the issues we had in MK9, but then took away some of his strengths. Instead of getting fixes we received a trade. His mixups in MK9 were fair because his one overhead was in the middle of the b1,2,1,4 string and his only low was the start of f4,4; so one could block Noob low all day, but just adjust to a high block to block the one hit that was overhead in his b1,2,1,4 string.
What good is high damage if you can't consistently land it? In a game where a lot of strings are safe and our best way to land damage is based on whiff normals and special moves, landing damage becomes increasingly hard when players become better defensively. I'd rather have scaled down damage to have Noob's ability to open up the opponent again. Again, his mixups in MK9 were fair and no where near the level of MKX's 50/50 coin flip extravaganza, or Sonya's Mixup's in the game.
If there any other general issues with Noob that aren't variation specific let me know and I can update the OP with them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The philosophy behind the variation system is to give characters an alternative options and tools that allow them to approach a match differently. This can help if a character has a bad matchup against a certain character in one variation. The other variation(s) could have tools to help assist in that bad matchup. Some characters do not get this luxury. Some characters have tools to handle situations and are cut by the limbs and separated into to different variations, leaving the character feeling incomplete. Sound familiar? Y'all remember MKX?
MK11 was designed to have the option of customizing ones own variation and playing the character as they saw fit. In a competitive environment it would of worked similarly to trading card games such as: Magic the Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh, Vanguard, Pokemon, and et cetera, where after a match players are given time to look at their side deck which consists of 15 cards that can be used to cover holes in a decks overall gameplan that another deck can expose, or to cripple a deck that performs better than it. This would have been done in a similar manner if customized variations where allowed in the competitive scene for MK11. Instead we're left with the same problem that was in MKX, but with less variations.
Noob's alternative variation, Seeing Double, suffers from this problem. it's supposed to be a zoning variation, but has problems of its own that makes it unusable in a competitive environment.
- Shadow Slide doesn't travel full screen. It disappears when it reaches half screen.
- Due to lack of a combo extension, Noob's damage has severally dropped in this variation.
- Ghostball, which in MK9 was used for setups, is too slow to be used at all.
It seems like this variation fails to operate properly and just wont cut it. So, our boy Noob is left with his only viable variation, Dark Sabbath, and doesn't have the luxury of have an alternative way of handling bad matchups.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Noob struggles in the neutral game and is slowly falling out of favor on the tier list because of these issues. There are characters who can do what Noob does, but better. Baraka and Kabal come to mind. Kabal can whiff punish well, rushdown and restand the opponent, but does low damage to compensate for it. Baraka is a good punisher with better reaching normals and posses good neutral game, better than Noob's in my opinion, with consistent midscreen and corner damage/ Plus, he can consistently utilize his krushing blows. Some user sproclaim if the top tiered characters are nerfed that there is a good chance he'll perform better. As much as I would like to believe that, there are still characters who hinder our character to play neutral, so I do believe said proclamation, but I don't think it will make him budge much.
@M2Dave has stated that Chris G has dropped Noob in favor of Scorpion, Honeybee is starting to play more D'vorah because of newly found potential, Waz is exclusively using Jade now, @TheGlow mentioned that Toxin is using Skarlet and Kabal now. This is looking bad. Real bad. I never understood the point of a variation system if NRS is just going to handle it like they're handling it now. I personally think that there shouldn't be any variations. That a character should just have their options when picked, much like MK9, or other fighting games, but this is a topic for another discussion and I'm digressing from the point at hand.
What is in store for the future of Noob Saibot? Will NRS do anything to alleviate the issues he has as a character? Will they balance the game and fix the issues that contradict the philosophy of the neutral game? Will they just do what they want and make a "hype" game where characters have tools that contradict how you were selling the game? I'd like to know everyone's opinions on this. Let's get this discussion started and bring some life back into the Noob forums!
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