U2's Need A Rework Badly

[Chernyy Volk]

U2's are terrible and a waste of a mechanic and I kinda wanna talk about them.

They

1: Don't do what they were meant to do reliably. Act as high reward anti airs and as exceptional punishes on predictable staggers. The reward is pitiful in most cases especially considering the read AND resources you spend doing it.

2: The characters with the best U2's happen to be the ones that also usually get the best damage

3: The speed disparities between U2's. Geras can launch literally anything in the game, Frost is close to not being able to U2 anything at all.

The thing about this mechanic and why I think it needs addressing is this is one of the things in the game with the potential to be THE MU cruncher, the equalizer. There are a couple of fixes I've thought about, but first here's some data about whose U2's are what for reference.

My barometers for milestones are, can you U2 a deep Geras Body Splash, Baraka J3, or a Liu Kang jump kick safe jump after bf4 MB in the corner.

6-8F U2's: You can launch everything in the game hitboxes aside including every d1 in the game.

Cetrion
Geras
Johnny Cage
Kano
Kitana
kung Lao
Liu Kang
Shang Tsung
Sonya

9f U2's: You can launch any jump in no matter how meaty including safe jumps and you blow up most predictable staggers that aren't crouch pokes.

D'vorah
Erron Black
Kollector
Raiden
Shao Khan
Skarlet

10-14f U2's: This is useless. It only works on certain strings with gaps. You cannot raw U2 most normals, strings, string into special cancels and can never U2 a jump in that isn't caught very pre-emptively.

Baraka
Cassie
Frost (14f bois)
Jacqui
Jade
Jax
Kabal
Kotal
Noob
Scorpion
Sub Zero

As you can see, most of the characters with the best/most reliable U2's are top tiers or sleeper top tiers. Kano and Kitana don't benefit from this because U2's do shit damage, and a pretty good chunk of the cast have U2's that just can't be used really.

So, I have two different overhauls in mind.

Fix number one: All U2's are in the 9f territory, do 10% damage, and are always -15 on block. Easy uniform solution. Everyone can use them the same way, everyone gets solid damage that rightfully coincides with their character archetype.

Fix number two: This one is more elaborate, and would maybe make for some interesting character distinction. Basically, the more accessible/usable your U2 is, the less damage it does and the more unsafe on block it is.

So

6-8f U2's: They stay doing 5% damage.
9f U2's: Do 8% damage, are full combo punishable on block in the event your opponent baits you.
10-14f U2's: Do 12% damage, are safe on block.

So yeah, I'm curious on peoples thoughts on this and tell me what solution you'd like better. I want to see this mechanic more usable.

 

[Vslayer]

I agree they’re shit. As a Cassie main, hers is cool and is a throwback to MKX but damn how are you suppose to combo off of it if it throws the opponent 50 million feet away from you? If they give us a mechanic meant to be rewarding (you read your opponent, spend resources and get something in return), then we should get the reward for it, but most characters don’t get a lot of damage off of it IF it lands since it’s not armored.

While were at it, u3s are okay for the most part but still not super useful and cost a bar for nothing when you could spend it to roll and whiff punish for a full combo instead. And they’re easy to bait. It all adds to the mind games but I rarely see people use them over rolls.

 

[Chernyy Volk]

I agree they’re shit. As a Cassie main, hers is cool and is a throwback to MKX but damn how are you suppose to combo off of it if it throws the opponent 50 million feet away from you? If they give us a mechanic meant to be rewarding (you read your opponent, spend resources and get something in return), then we should get the reward for it, but most characters don’t get a lot of damage off of it IF it lands since it’s not armored.

While were at it, u3s are okay for the most part but still not super useful and cost a bar for nothing when you could spend it to roll and whiff punish for a full combo instead. And they’re easy to bait. It all adds to the mind games but I rarely see people use them over rolls.

I kind of think make all u3's 6f and do 12% damage shrug.

 

[Vslayer]

I kind of think make all u3's 6f and do 12% damage shrug.

That’s reasonable considering you can neutral jump most of them, except maybe Kung Lao since his kicks seem to reach really far.

 

[Chernyy Volk]

Btw @Vslayer which of my two solutions do you personally like better?

 

[spidey300]

I would rather the option of u2 just being universal in every way since they threw away traditional wakeups for literal universal wakeups

 

[RoboCop]

Poor Jade’s u2 is more beneficial to her opponent than to her. You spend a fucking offensive and defensive bar on a successful flawless block only for the u2 to whiff against a point-blank move and she gets full-kombo punished. Solid game design, NRS.

 

[Chernyy Volk]

Poor Jade’s u2 is more beneficial to her opponent than to her. You spend a fucking offensive and defensive bar on a successful flawless block only for the u2 to whiff against a point-blank move and she gets full-kombo punished. Solid game design, NRS.

RIP

 

[Baconlord]

I don't think the mechanic itself is bad, it's just that a lot of characters have shitty u2s. Shit like kitana's u2 need to be changed but personally I don't want u2s to have this massive reward since it would make the risk reward of using strings with gaps a little to disproportionate imo.

 

[Chernyy Volk]

I don't think the mechanic itself is bad, it's just that a lot of characters have shitty u2s. Shit like kitana's u2 need to be changed but personally I don't want u2s to have this massive reward since it would make the risk reward of using strings with gaps a little to disproportionate imo.

Other string based games have this kind of risk entailed with strings with gaps in them. It'd just bring the game to conventional standard.

 

[Vslayer]

Btw @Vslayer which of my two solutions do you personally like better?

Fix one, uniformity on mechanics like these would be better. I believe rolls are the same for everyone, they should too.

 

[Chernyy Volk]

Fix one, uniformity on mechanics like these would be better. I believe rolls are the same for everyone, they should too.

It's my preferred fix too. D1's shouldn't be fucking launchable lol. The 6-8 ones gotta go IMO.

 

[SaltShaker]

Gotta agree with you @Chernyy Volk on this one. Doesn't make sense to me to have universal options, that, well, aren't universal. It's worse when the characters who are already the best have the best universal mechanics. Almost like two different design teams worked on the game or something.

Make them all launch consistently into full combo, make them all AA consistently, make them all do a certain % of damage, whatever. Just make it universal and consistent and we can go from there.

 

[thlityoursloat]

Yes 100x.
They're too inconsistent to have any notable utility in the game. I'd just say unify all of them to have very similar properties, whatever those may be, they should be sufficient for them to AA and punish every single gap in the game every single time.

 

[Matix218]

As a scorpion main i dont even bother. U3 is way better and U2 gets stuffed half the time and gets punished on block the other half

 

[thlityoursloat]

As a scorpion main i dont even bother. U3 is way better and U2 gets stuffed half the time and gets punished on block the other half

Scorpion main complaining about u2s whiffing? JJ Jameson laugh.

 

[GLoRToR]

Jade's is the worst in the game, hands down. T-rex reach and she doesn't have any reliable combo damage to begin with to follow it up anyway even if you do manage to launch something accidentally.

(Kitana's and Skarlet's are the exact same)

 

[MagicMan357]

real talk i think u2 is just dumb in general but i also think this is funny because now we have a universal mechanic that doesnt have universal properties and now people are mad about that lmao! NRS cant win for shit! But in all seriousness, i think the u2 balance is dumb asf like you said the hard hitters can hit harder mean while fuckers like jade who isnt meant to combo cant combo smh.

 

[S+ Main]

This thread upset Geras

 

[Zer0_h0ur]

Really annoys me how they made Geras so obv over powered and Jades so worthless.
I swear you had entire teams of developers working on 1 character, and one single developer working on like 5-7 lower characters.

 

[The Slaj Jazz]

I just dont get how u2s dont hit crossover jumps.

 

[STB Sgt Reed]

While were at it, u3s are okay for the most part but still not super useful and cost a bar for nothing when you could spend it to roll and whiff punish for a full combo instead. And they’re easy to bait. It all adds to the mind games but I rarely see people use them over rolls.

Clearly you don't play vs me enough. I literally do them all the time.

U2s tho, never use em. They're fucking shit and barely even anti air unless they jump at you like they're doing a jump in punch combo starter in practice mode lol

 

[Vslayer]

Clearly you don't play vs me enough. I literally do them all the time.

U2s tho, never use em. They're fucking shit and barely even anti air unless they jump at you like they're doing a jump in punch combo starter in practice mode lol

That's true, U3 are okay in most situations, they're still easy to bait, but I get hit by them all the time cause once the opponent is down for me it means: dash into F4,1! lmao

 

[trufenix]

Just don't use them? You have about 40 different wake up options.

 

[trufenix]

Man, it is just crazy watching people ask for all the shit back that ruined MKX.