What's new

These 9-Frame Mids NEED To Go!!

Arqwart

D'Vorah for KP2 copium
Basically... give Kitana a 9 frame mid










..:DOGE
Or an entire damn rework. That'd be neat.

As for the topic at hand, I'm kinda fine with the 9f mids in theory assuming they're on characters who focus on close range gameplay. I'd argue that is NOT the case for Liu due to his base kit having decent zoning and the dragon kick. Cassie makes sense, though it can be a little obnoxious in her zoning variation; but I feel that's a different situation due to it being variation specific. Jacqui it 100% makes sense for. Overall, I'd honestly argue that MORE close-range characters should get 9f mids that complement their gameplay as effectively as it does Jacqui, Liu, and Cassie.

My hot take drunken ass lists of characters who 100% should, maybe should, and definitely should not have a 9f mid:

100% Should Have
Frost
Kano
Jacqui
Cassie
Baraka
Kollector
Kotal
Jax
Johnny
Nightwolf
Raiden

Maybe Should or Shouldn't Have
Kung Lao
Kabal
Sonya
Scorpion
Sub-Zero
Kitana
Shao
Erron
Geras

Definitely Should Not Have
Liu
Cetrion
Jade
Noob
Shang
Skarlet
D'Vorah
 

kcd117

Noob
In high level play there are characters who get far more for far less, which is why most of the top players who mained Jacqui have dropped her for other chars. She is very good, but this narrative of "0 effort" that you're trying to push is exactly the opposite of what it takes to reach her potential.
Imo the only reason people are not using Jacqui as much after the patch is bc most of the people that used to use her and switched are either playing Liu Kang (a character that does everything she does in the rushdown department just as good but also has strong zoning tools) or a character they believe can stand up against Liu Kang. The better Jacqui players Tweedy, Kevo and CoachSteve, are still using her, and those that are not (NinjaKilla and Rewind) are using Liu Kang and I’m 100% sure they’ll go back to Jacqui once Liu gets murdered by the patch of she stays untouched.

I agree other characters can put you in worse situations with less effort (Liu, Geras and Cetrion) but having a -3 D1 and -2 cancels and staggers out of a poke-crushing 9 frame mid is still not justifiable by that. She literally has situations against some characters where you have to do a frame-perfect poke or normal to get out of her D1 F3/ F31 F3 on block, but if she delays the F3 by one frame you’ll get hit out of your poke/normal. I know you watch the tournaments and have seen many top players get hit by a F3 after a D1 on block. Would it really be too much of a nerf to get rid of the pushback on her D1 and F31, make her D1 -6? I’m not even talking about the safe advancing KB specials or the half screen staggerable normals, just make the bullshit frame data stuff a little bit less bullshit.
 

CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
Administrator
Imo the only reason people are not using Jacqui as much after the patch is bc most of the people that used to use her and switched are either playing Liu Kang (a character that does everything she does in the rushdown department just as good but also has strong zoning tools) or a character they believe can stand up against Liu Kang. The better Jacqui players Tweedy, Kevo and CoachSteve, are still using her, and those that are not (NinjaKilla and Rewind) are using Liu Kang and I’m 100% sure they’ll go back to Jacqui once Liu gets murdered by the patch of she stays untouched.

I agree other characters can put you in worse situations with less effort (Liu, Geras and Cetrion) but having a -3 D1 and -2 cancels and staggers out of a poke-crushing 9 frame mid is still not justifiable by that. She literally has situations against some characters where you have to do a frame-perfect poke or normal to get out of her D1 F3/ F31 F3 on block, but if she delays the F3 by one frame you’ll get hit out of your poke/normal. I know you watch the tournaments and have seen many top players get hit by a F3 after a D1 on block. Would it really be too much of a nerf to get rid of the pushback on her D1 and F31, make her D1 -6? I’m not even talking about the safe advancing KB specials or the half screen staggerable normals, just make the bullshit frame data stuff a little bit less bullshit.
CoachSteve hasn't placed, Kevo uses mostly Sonya and other chars with maybe 20% Jacqui, and pretty much everyone else dropped her due to what I said earlier: there are characters that give you more for much less effort.

It's not in dispute that she's good, but "0 effort" doesn't describe anything about her.
 
Last edited:
Reactions: JDE

kcd117

Noob
CoachSteve hasn't placed, Kevo uses mostly Sonya and other chars with maybe 20% Jacqui, and pretty much everyone else dropped her due to what I said earlier: there are characters that give you more for much less effort.

It's not in dispute that she's good, but "0 effort" doesn't describe anything about her.
Coach Steve won summer jam and Kevo uses her more than he uses Sonya... I’d say it is a 50/40/10 between Jacqui, Sonya and Scorpion for him lol.

She is still one of the most used characters in pro kompetition, probavly 4th or 3rd most used one. I really can’t see Jacqui players making that much of an effort to compete against anyone...
 

CrimsonShadow

Administrator and Community Engineer
Administrator
Coach Steve won summer jam and Kevo uses her more than he uses Sonya... I’d say it is a 50/40/10 between Jacqui, Sonya and Scorpion for him lol.

She is still one of the most used characters in pro kompetition, probavly 4th or 3rd most used one. I really can’t see Jacqui players making that much of an effort to compete against anyone...
Summer Jam was during Celtic Throwdown when 99% of top players were out of the country..

And Jacqui is barely being used in major Top 8's. You might see her in one match out of the entire top 8, and that's it. Name the tournament since EVO where this isn't the case.
 

mrapchem

Noob
Or an entire damn rework. That'd be neat.

As for the topic at hand, I'm kinda fine with the 9f mids in theory assuming they're on characters who focus on close range gameplay. I'd argue that is NOT the case for Liu due to his base kit having decent zoning and the dragon kick. Cassie makes sense, though it can be a little obnoxious in her zoning variation; but I feel that's a different situation due to it being variation specific. Jacqui it 100% makes sense for. Overall, I'd honestly argue that MORE close-range characters should get 9f mids that complement their gameplay as effectively as it does Jacqui, Liu, and Cassie.

My hot take drunken ass lists of characters who 100% should, maybe should, and definitely should not have a 9f mid:

100% Should Have
Frost
Kano
Jacqui
Cassie
Baraka
Kollector
Kotal
Jax
Johnny
Nightwolf
Raiden

Maybe Should or Shouldn't Have
Kung Lao
Kabal
Sonya
Scorpion
Sub-Zero
Kitana
Shao
Erron
Geras

Definitely Should Not Have
Liu
Cetrion
Jade
Noob
Shang
Skarlet
D'Vorah
That's certainly an interesting and ambitious idea! However, I think doing that would completely throw the balance off. If you give characters like Baraka, Nightwolf and Frost the same kind of 9-frame mids that Cassie and Jacqui have, not only do those characters become obnoxious now, but it takes away from the unique utility that a character like Jacqui has.

The rest of the cast besides the top 10 or so are fairly well-balanced, except for Kotal and Kano. If anything, I think those kinds of mids should be rarer, that way when a character has one, it's a big deal. And they should work in the same way that the characters with 6-frame pokes do - they are the fastest pokes in the game with some of the shortest range and can be low-profiled.

Now, if you're talking about giving these characters the same kind of 9-frame mids that Kabal has, then I might be able to get behind that.
 

kcd117

Noob
Summer Jam was during Celtic Throwdown when 99% of top players were out of the country..

And Jacqui is barely being used in major Top 8's. You might see her in one match out of the entire top 8, and that's it. Name the tournament since EVO where this isn't the case.
We had three major tournaments since EVO if I’m not mistaken: the online NA west, celtic throwdown and dreamhack.

For NA west we had a top 8 with:

Sub
Geras
Kitana
Liu
Jacqui
Scorpion
Baraka
Jacqui

For CT we had

D’vorah
Liu
Geras
Shang
Sonya
Lao
Sub
Cetrion
Shao
Erron
Cassie

For dreamhack we had

Liu
D’vorah
Jax
Cassie
Geras
Sonya
Lao
Scorpion
Cetrion
Kitana
Erron
Jacqui

She showed up and was played multiple times through her 2 appearances out of 3 pro kompetition top 8s, not to mention the top 16s. If you think about it, characters like cetrion or geras are (top 3 free) being used by less people than Jacqui in recent top 8s lol.
 
For NA West we had 2 Liu Kang player in top 8.
Jacqui was used by Rewind, and he also played Liu Kang there. So Jacqui usage in that tournament is so so.
And there was no Kitana in top 8. There was a Cage player, who lost 2-0 to Liu Kang. Sub Zero also lost 2-0 to Kang. So much with Cage and Sub good matchup against Kang ....
For CT you still got some of them wrong:
VideoGames play Jax and Shao Khan in top 8.
There wasnt any Sub Zero in top 8.
Dizzy played Liu Kang, but you cant count that, because it was for 1 match, and his main is not Liu. If you count him, there is 2 Kang player in top 8.
No Jacqui at all.
For dreamhack :
You got them all right.
Dizzy again decide to play Kang, if you count hat, there is again 2 Kang in top 8.
 

kcd117

Noob
For NA West we had 2 Liu Kang player in top 8.
Jacqui was used by Rewind, and he also played Liu Kang there. So Jacqui usage in that tournament is so so.
And there was no Kitana in top 8. There was a Cage player, who lost 2-0 to Liu Kang. Sub Zero also lost 2-0 to Kang. So much with Cage and Sub good matchup against Kang ....
For CT you still got some of them wrong:
VideoGames play Jax and Shao Khan in top 8.
There wasnt any Sub Zero in top 8.
Dizzy played Liu Kang, but you cant count that, because it was for 1 match, and his main is not Liu. If you count him, there is 2 Kang player in top 8.
No Jacqui at all.
For dreamhack :
You got them all right.
Dizzy again decide to play Kang, if you count hat, there is again 2 Kang in top 8.
Deoxys used kitana against DJT’s Baraka in NA west, and rewind used Jacqui against phoenix twice... considering he played 4 sets in top 8 he used Jacqui just as much as he used Liu lol.

CT I listed both jax and shao, but F0xy also used Sub Zero against rewind. And yes, you can and I am counting every single game bc that is the main point of comparison lol.
 

Arqwart

D'Vorah for KP2 copium
That's certainly an interesting and ambitious idea! However, I think doing that would completely throw the balance off. If you give characters like Baraka, Nightwolf and Frost the same kind of 9-frame mids that Cassie and Jacqui have, not only do those characters become obnoxious now, but it takes away from the unique utility that a character like Jacqui has.

The rest of the cast besides the top 10 or so are fairly well-balanced, except for Kotal and Kano. If anything, I think those kinds of mids should be rarer, that way when a character has one, it's a big deal. And they should work in the same way that the characters with 6-frame pokes do - they are the fastest pokes in the game with some of the shortest range and can be low-profiled.

Now, if you're talking about giving these characters the same kind of 9-frame mids that Kabal has, then I might be able to get behind that.
I definitely mean more of the Kabal style, not advancing 9f mid shenanigans like the others. The 100%-should-have characters have to generally take a notable amount of time and risk to get in so having something notable when they get in would be huge in helping their close range games.
 
Deoxys used kitana against DJT’s Baraka in NA west, and rewind used Jacqui against phoenix twice... considering he played 4 sets in top 8 he used Jacqui just as much as he used Liu lol.

CT I listed both jax and shao, but F0xy also used Sub Zero against rewind. And yes, you can and I am counting every single game bc that is the main point of comparison lol.
I dont think we should place character in any position, just because of like 20 set, someone decide to use the so call character in 1 set.
For me this is not a proper stats count.

And check your post, at CT you didnt listed Jax in there.

As far as Rewind Jacqui i agree on this one. When a player use the character lets say in more than 2 matches, its fair to count it.
 

Scoot Magee

But I didn't want to dash
The characters you mention are all enhanced with online play. I dont think things are as bad as you say in an offline environment. Also Jackie's dash punch is a great example. It may be safe on block but it's a high and you can bait it for a full combo. Online it's a lot harder to deal with.

Edit

Liu kang is really good, though. I said this since the beginning but now he shines.
 
Last edited:
The characters you mention are all enhanced with online play. I dont think things are as bad as you say in an offline environment. Also Jackie's dash punch is a great example. It may be safe on block but it's a high and you can bait it for a full combo. Online it's a lot harder to deal with.
this is very true of course. a proper hardware setup and offline environment is still the basis for competitive playing.
thing is though that the nrs playerbase is like online-only (besides of the small tournament playerbase). they don't even know the difference between both environments and how it affect the gameplay in a massive way.
for this reason all these bitching, complaining (competitive topics) on this site over the years, can not be taken seriously and sadly the people who post it are not even aware of it.