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The Worst Variation: A Race to the Bottom

Second Saint

A man with too many names.
It's time to stop all this theoryfighting and grinding and complaining about how our characters aren't any good or shouldn't be nerfed. The ebb and flow of up and down play is a tale as old as this scene, and that's beautiful but we've been given a new opportunity. We've been given the freedom to create the truly worst character we can. What're the things that are actively detrimental to your gameplan, or over-valued, or can you just load up on utility skills that don't add anything of substance?

For my main D'vorah, it's pretty simple. Super Swarm/Fly By. Super Swarm is an absolute juggernaut of a shitty move, and is possibly even the worst move. It's a buff that between startup and recovery takes about 50f to get out, always costs a bar, and lasts a whopping 4 whole seconds, roughly the same amount of time as 1 throw. It does 10 damage to the opponent every time they hit D'vorah. The single best conceivable use for it is to get back thrown by Lao and actually trade evenly with him. This is a 2 slot ability that also even conflicts with Deadly Swarm, making it somehow worse.

Fly By is a utility/mobility tool that isn't abjectly awful, but it also isn't something you can base your kit around. I guess it might be useful in that you can activate Super Swarm and get over to your opponent so they can hit you really fast.

All you low tier mains, it's time to shine. If you've got the worst character, dig deep as you possibly can and tell me what could be even worse and why.
 
Let us observe Skarlet in her natural habitat!

Replace tentacle with Red Mist, which only does low DoT dmg from kissing distance, which is where Skarlet doesn't want to be, and which her throw animations keep her out of.

Let's pick up Blood Ritual, so you can do twice the damage to yourself as the opponent takes, plus it takes forever for you to recover from, so you cannot block anything, ensuring more damage taken.

For our final contestant, we have to pick Blood Port, a teleport so slow that the opponent can punish it on reaction (and while you can go farther away from them by using all your defensive meter on it, you still recover so slow that many people can punish you!). However, this does technically let you do stuff on a read, so I'm sad to say it's not entirely useless.
 

Eddy Wang

Skarlet scientist
Let us observe Skarlet in her natural habitat!

Replace tentacle with Red Mist, which only does low DoT dmg from kissing distance, which is where Skarlet doesn't want to be, and which her throw animations keep her out of.

Let's pick up Blood Ritual, so you can do twice the damage to yourself as the opponent takes, plus it takes forever for you to recover from, so you cannot block anything, ensuring more damage taken.

For our final contestant, we have to pick Blood Port, a teleport so slow that the opponent can punish it on reaction (and while you can go farther away from them by using all your defensive meter on it, you still recover so slow that many people can punish you!). However, this does technically let you do stuff on a read, so I'm sad to say it's not entirely useless.
swap teleport with krimson shield and you have the worst skarlet variation
 

Pan1cMode

AUS FGC represent!
The worst jacqui variation would be:

  • grab reversal
  • tech dome
  • air ground pound
Absolutely 0 synergy.

Granted, base Jacqui still has great tools, but this variation is bleaghhhh
 
Kitana: Fan nado and Edenian fade.
Fade is a garbage move that costs two slot. Fan nado replaces the default lift meaning she lost a valuable combo launcher.
And there is nothing to synergize with the fan nado. It's worse than variation less Kitana
 

Gaxkang

Banned
Robooooocop...

Cheval Trap
Electric Shield
And something, hrm....

Really the way Cheval Trap is, it should be a basic move.
 

Pan1cMode

AUS FGC represent!
Kitana: Fan nado and Edenian fade.
Fade is a garbage move that costs two slot. Fan nado replaces the default lift meaning she lost a valuable combo launcher.
And there is nothing to synergize with the fan nado. It's worse than variation less Kitana
Surely her god awful arcing fan toss has to be in this variation?

So:
Fanado
Arcing fan toss
??? (Up fan/edenian twist/royal protection)
 
Worst Kotal variation : Tonathium burst , god ray and meter regen totem. ( variation name: kotaly useless)
Worst Shao variation : Ridicule , dark priest and up wrath hammer. ( variation name: HA HA HA )
 

Wrenchfarm

Lexcorp Proprietary Technologies
Worst variation for everybody is none, none and none.

Because that's what you can actually do.
Nah, there are totally sub-par variation moves that have the nerve to conflict with and overwrite useful base moves. You can definitely make a character worse than variationless with a little creativity.
 

colby4898

Special Forces Sonya Up-player
The worst jacqui variation would be:

  • grab reversal
  • tech dome
  • air ground pound
Absolutely 0 synergy.

Granted, base Jacqui still has great tools, but this variation is bleaghhhh
Even those dont seem that bad... grab reversal is good, can get damage from the oppoent throwing you.

Tech dome only reducing special move damage is dumb, but at least you might be able to set up kb throw.

Air dive isn't great, bit not awful, and at least armour breaks.

Definitely not a good variation, but as far as worse moves go, she ain't bad compared to some others.
 
Even those dont seem that bad... grab reversal is good, can get damage from the oppoent throwing you.

Tech dome only reducing special move damage is dumb, but at least you might be able to set up kb throw.

Air dive isn't great, bit not awful, and at least armour breaks.

Definitely not a good variation, but as far as worse moves go, she ain't bad compared to some others.
She has a complete base kit.
 
Yeah, overwriting useful core stuff is so much worse than having no abilities slotted.

Note how Jacqui and Liu's abilities just add to their already amazing core kit, instead of replacing anything.