Strategy - Master of Souls Unsafe God Ermac

[MK_Chameleon]

Liu Kang? He doesn't have a vortex.

Yeah he does go find it for yourself i'm tired of spoon feeding you people everything.

 

[MK_Chameleon]

You want unsafe? Try playing Shinnok.

Cybernetic Kano says hi.

Quit complaining, go into the lab, learn matchups, adapt, level up. Complaining does nothing except get you blown up.

I am winning with Ermac that's not a problem I am positive I can place high with Ermac at the first couple majors because people will not be punishing his vortex right now. But down the line as poeple ADAPT ermac will get worse. All I'm saying is ermac is at his best right now and it's only gonna go downhill from here.

 

[MagicMan357]

3 weeks and youre king shit...

 

[Peckapowa]

how can you say that. d1 is literally most dangerous tool ermac has in his arsenal. NO ONE CAN OUT poke ermac, but what you apparently dont get (its ok, it took me awhile too) is that d1 on hit is like around +13, which means after ONE HIT with d1 i can GO VORTEX! b3 is around 14-15 startup if not less, same on f4 so basically d1 or d3=vortex

What's his d1 on block?

 

[Peckapowa]

Why is ermac an unsafe vortex char in the first place?? I always thought his archetype was midscreen space control and footsies. We complain about safe 50/50s making the game too guessing oriented so they make everything unsafe which just makes it a different kind of randomness. Whatever happened to an oh that knockdown and does 8% with pushback on block...

It's like they tried to make some chars honest and other ones they tried to make ridiculous, its the only logical explanation, btw being able to trade your fb for a full combo is beast, and can't you cancel your strings into that safe blast and play footsies?? Isn't that blast safe??

 

[MK_Chameleon]

Why is ermac an unsafe vortex char in the first place?? I always thought his archetype was midscreen space control and footsies. We complain about safe 50/50s making the game too guessing oriented so they make everything unsafe which just makes it a different kind of randomness. Whatever happened to an oh that knockdown and does 8% with pushback on block...

It's like they tried to make some chars honest and other ones they tried to make ridiculous, its the only logical explanation, btw being able to trade your fb for a full combo is beast, and can't you cancel your strings into that safe blast and play footsies?? Isn't that blast safe??

If no one had safe vortex I would be more than happy but they're more than a few who do which is upsetting. Also his blast is super punishable unless you use bar then its -5 but you get nothing afterwards and the mb blast does like 4% damage. Also the direction this game is headed highly favors rush down over zoning.

 

[Peckapowa]

If no one had safe vortex I would be more than happy but they're more than a few who do which is upsetting. Also his blast is super punishable unless you use bar then its -5 but you get nothing afterwards and the mb blast does like 4% damage. Also the direction this game is headed highly favors rush down over zoning.

Yes I c, he might be poopoo, I figured the blast was a bit better

Quan chi will always be able to zone if you can put up with being destroyed on knockdown.

 

[Phosferrax]

Yeah he does go find it for yourself i'm tired of spoon feeding you people everything.

Spoon feeding? Man get over yourself.

Considering he doesn't have an overhead starter, or a restand that gets more than 18% I'm going to take your 'vortex' with a pinch of salt until I see it.

 

[SZSR]

Settle down, there's no real reason to get worked up over this. I've finished cleaning some posts, but for the love of pete this is still just a video game.

 

[Sulfur]

If NWM taught me anything it's that Kung Jin is the only viable character in this game.

 

[haketh]

If NWM taught me anything being here Ermac is mad cheap.

 

[KamikazeJD]

Can someone close this troll thread? He is just getting his rocks off by trying to tell us how bad our character is without giving any solutions. It's like getting an F on a test but the teacher doesnt show what yiu did wrong or where. The general discussion shows that we are actively working to find solutions to his problems. Who cares if u play top players. It doesnt make you good, bro. I can throw some names out that ive played against, it really dont mean shit.
Come at us differently, you will be taken seriously if you do.

 

[LRK128]

MK_CHAMELEON did you even read my post? I told you how he's NOT unsafe.

 

[MK_Chameleon]

Can someone close this troll thread? He is just getting his rocks off by trying to tell us how bad our character is without giving any solutions. It's like getting an F on a test but the teacher doesnt show what yiu did wrong or where. The general discussion shows that we are actively working to find solutions to his problems. Who cares if u play top players. It doesnt make you good, bro. I can throw some names out that ive played against, it really dont mean shit.
Come at us differently, you will be taken seriously if you do.

That's the problem there is no solution only solution is to pray you guess right and if you dont hope they dont full combo punish. You can cancel into his mb blast which will leave you safe but there's no real point in doing that after his low or overhead since you cant hit confirm it.

 

[zaf]

ERMAC can hit confirm his F2 into F21D2 if F2 is blocked don't finish the combo it is neutral. You can hit confirm B3 into a combo or leave it at B3 which is -4 on block. His F4 is very negative on block but in master of souls you can confirm it to combo or disappear if it is blocked and just delay disappear to avoid reversals, but your opponent will catch on eventually, once they do start waiting for your disappear, then you don't have to and their waiting will make you safe, of course you can't make them do the wrong thing every time. He is not too unsafe

You can be grabbed out of disappear/vanish. I don't recommend doing this in front of your opponent lol....
Why would you even want to do that in the first place. When you go for the F4 or the B3 mix up or the vortex, you are taking a guess so you are going into the teleport regardless of going for the f4 or b3 first. So in the chances that you guess right, you are doing F4 or b3 in vanish ? uh......
Doing this pretty much shows no confidence in your read and on hit if you guessed right grants you nothing.

Guys, he is not trolling.... He is just giving his thoughts about the character.

In a way I can say I feel the same slightly. But I find his walk speed to be more of a problem.
It is hard to walk back out of a lot of the good footsies tools that some characters have. I can walk around fine with other characters but his walk back speed is very slow and it allows for people to be able to get in on you pretty easily compared to other characters.

Right now, no one that I have seen on stream ( the break, GGA) is punishing ermac at all. Ermac players are getting away with Murder.

 

[A F0xy Grampa]

The mechanics of the game makes it so that canceling a normal into a special must be done immediately after the input of the first normal NOT after the hit after the input. Therefore hit confirming is impossible.

Hitconfirming is possible.

 

[LRK128]

You can be grabbed out of disappear/vanish. I don't recommend doing this in front of your opponent lol....
Why would you even want to do that in the first place. When you go for the F4 or the B3 mix up or the vortex, you are taking a guess so you are going into the teleport regardless of going for the f4 or b3 first. So in the chances that you guess right, you are doing F4 or b3 in vanish ? uh......
Doing this pretty much shows no confidence in your read and on hit if you guessed right grants you nothing.
-That's not what I meant, sorry if I wasn't clear. Vanish shouldn't be used with B3 ever as far as I can tell. With F4, IF they block, you can vanish to avoid attacks. I didn't know they could grab you, but it still makes the punish a lot smaller. If you do vanish enough they will catch on and may delay their attacks so they don't miss, once they start not immediately punishing then you can stop vanishing and recover safely. Again I didn't know they could grab you. B3 and F21D2 are still hitconfirmably completely safe, and F4 has a reliable throw punish around 12% and then disappearing stuff you can do in master of souls to help avoid larger punishes.

Guys, he is not trolling.... He is just giving his thoughts about the character.

In a way I can say I feel the same slightly. But I find his walk speed to be more of a problem.
It is hard to walk back out of a lot of the good footsies tools that some characters have. I can walk around fine with other characters but his walk back speed is very slow and it allows for people to be able to get in on you pretty easily compared to other characters.

Right now, no one that I have seen on stream ( the break, GGA) is punishing ermac at all. Ermac players are getting away with Murder.

also Chameleon go to practice mode F4 is clearly hitconfirmable and B3 is too, B3 is really really hard to though (I can't do it in a real match yet) but spend time and you'll get it

 

[BoromiRofGeo]

anyone who says b3/f4 is hitconfirmable is either lying or is a scrub.
you either dedicated yourself to do teleport after b3/f4 or you dont.
no one can react to 15 frame and see what happens next.
Teleport must be buffered even before the hit is connected.

 

[xInfra Deadx]

Jedis aren't going to be able to hit confirm with Ermac 90% of the time. He's all about commitment.

 

[sub_on_dubs]

I agree. He probably will never be top tier, but who cares. Just play the character you like. I think Ermac is dope and plan to play him along with one or two other characters. With his vortex, he kind of reminds me of Scorpion from Mk9, pretty unsafe, but definitely can make some noise if you're good at making reads.

 

[Northern Slasher]

Whatever.. I'll be maining him till the end for sure. I don't need to have a safe vortex 50/50 high meterless damage overhead low mix up character. Being my favorite character is good enough.

 

[Metzos]

Mb force blast is a high hitting move, (unless they changed it in the recent patches) so dont get your hopes up for safe blockstrings or safe wake ups (it can be baited, trust me). Plus the fact it can be interrupted after a blocked down poke. What zaf said. Ermac players in the recent tournaments are getting away with murder.

 

[KNX]

Even if the most godlike people are able to hitconfirm f+4 and b+3 consistently (consistently being the key word), f+4 is unsafe and full combo punishable. And for how difficult it is to hitconfirm b+3, it's -4, meaning you've got to hold whatever the opp is gonna do next.

I agree somewhat with what the OP is saying even if he maybe didn't put his opinion across in a productive way. He's one of the most punishable characters in the game, almost every avenue of damage he has is punishable into a full combo. He has one truly safe special which is EX Air Blast which is only effective in Mystic imo.

I'm not calling for buffs or anything, but a couple things I would've preferred he had. First f+2,1 I'd have made be -4 at the most. f+2,1 on its own being punishable into a full combo is ridiculous. At worst, for confirming that f+2,1 is blocked, you should lose pressure (hence the -4) not eat a full combo. The recovery on Push is a little harsh. There's no real space control option in Mystic... The reward for hitting Push or EX Push isn't even that great, they should've made at least one of those moves a little harder to punish. And I guess the Lvl 1 and 2 Soul Balls have no real reason to be as bad as Lvl 3 Soul Ball in terms of recovery, it just doesn't make sense to me why the frame data on Soul Ball is equal at every level. And finally his movement speed... His walk forward and backward are so bad for the limited zoning options he has. It makes it very, very hard to walk in and out of poke range. If he's forced to play midrange against a character like D'Vorah he'll get blown up

As time goes on, stuff like b+3,2/b+3,4 gimmick will be getting blocked and punished consistently. More people will OS punish his f+2,1 string. People will bait and duck EX Soul Blast on wakeup and punish with full combos. Now I love me some Mac, but seeing the shit that other characters can do currently, and the potential for those characters, playing him at this level will be tough. Not saying everyone should drop Mac, but I'm just accepting the limitations he has currently.

 

[zaf]

Even if the most godlike people are able to hitconfirm f+4 and b+3 consistently (consistently being the key word), f+4 is unsafe and full combo punishable. And for how difficult it is to hitconfirm b+3, it's -4, meaning you've got to hold whatever the opp is gonna do next.

I agree somewhat with what the OP is saying even if he maybe didn't put his opinion across in a productive way. He's one of the most punishable characters in the game, almost every avenue of damage he has is punishable into a full combo. He has one truly safe special which is EX Air Blast which is only effective in Mystic imo.

I'm not calling for buffs or anything, but a couple things I would've preferred he had. First f+2,1 I'd have made be -4 at the most. f+2,1 on its own being punishable into a full combo is ridiculous. At worst, for confirming that f+2,1 is blocked, you should lose pressure (hence the -4) not eat a full combo. The recovery on Push is a little harsh. There's no real space control option in Mystic... The reward for hitting Push or EX Push isn't even that great, they should've made at least one of those moves a little harder to punish. And I guess the Lvl 1 and 2 Soul Balls have no real reason to be as bad as Lvl 3 Soul Ball in terms of recovery, it just doesn't make sense to me why the frame data on Soul Ball is equal at every level. And finally his movement speed... His walk forward and backward are so bad for the limited zoning options he has. It makes it very, very hard to walk in and out of poke range. If he's forced to play midrange against a character like D'Vorah he'll get blown up

As time goes on, stuff like b+3,2/b+3,4 gimmick will be getting blocked and punished consistently. More people will OS punish his f+2,1 string. People will bait and duck EX Soul Blast on wakeup and punish with full combos. Now I love me some Mac, but seeing the shit that other characters can do currently, and the potential for those characters, playing him at this level will be tough. Not saying everyone should drop Mac, but I'm just accepting the limitations he has currently.

Actually, I may have found something that will make some parts of his vortex A LOT better. Making him more safe in a way. Will test more later on and post with results.

Ex air blast is an overhead, so during the vortex this can be implemented as well and you can still convert that with a Lift.
F21 Here D2 has a gap. So just use F212 when you think the opponent wants to armor. That is the "answer" so to speak. Not F21 frames being fixed.

Yea It would be cool if 1 soul or 2 soul , soul balls had different frame properties. But it could potentially just give him a safe vortex. Then It might be a problem.

His walk speed is like I mentioned above... hard to weave in and out of stuff compared to others. I am guessing we are supposed to be using vanish more for things like this.....For characters like d'vorah, you should be able to teleport on her F2 if she does not connect with (whiff punish) it and then you get a combo.

Stuff like B32 and B34 isn't really a "gimmick". I see what you mean, but it is still legit. It is punishable, but it still has to be blocked properly. Not sure how people will be doing that in the future. It's literally a guess. OS punish his F21 string will DEFINITELY become a thing. So like I mentioned use F212.

 

[KNX]

Actually, I may have found something that will make some parts of his vortex A LOT better. Making him more safe in a way. Will test more later on and post with results.

Ex air blast is an overhead, so during the vortex this can be implemented as well and you can still convert that with a Lift.
F21 Here D2 has a gap. So just use F212 when you think the opponent wants to armor. That is the "answer" so to speak. Not F21 frames being fixed.

Yea It would be cool if 1 soul or 2 soul , soul balls had different frame properties. But it could potentially just give him a safe vortex. Then It might be a problem.

His walk speed is like I mentioned above... hard to weave in and out of stuff compared to others. I am guessing we are supposed to be using vanish more for things like this.....For characters like d'vorah, you should be able to teleport on her F2 if she does not connect with (whiff punish) it and then you get a combo.

Stuff like B32 and B34 isn't really a "gimmick". I see what you mean, but it is still legit. It is punishable, but it still has to be blocked properly. Not sure how people will be doing that in the future. It's literally a guess. OS punish his F21 string will DEFINITELY become a thing. So like I mentioned use F212.

I'm forced to use f+2,1,2 anyway, but would've been interesting having f+2,1 as a safe hit confirmable tool, generally to see how opposition will respond to it.

I wouldn't mind his vortex being stronger currently. Atm, while you can end a match quickly with a couple correct guesses, one wrong guess and he's done. Full combo punish, etc. Maybe I'm just used to Vortexes being a bunch of mixture of options (some safe, some not) that lead into damage, SFIV Akuma being a classic example. This vortex is a lot more "fair" lol suppose that's a good thing.

I've been playing some D'Vorah on the side (will likely move her up to main status very soon as she's so good), the issue is her d+4. He hasn't got the movement to stay outside that range consistently. It recovers fast and is cancellable. She can easily force you to use up stamina on backdashing, just because you can't fuck with her at that range nor get out safely with any other method.

And yeah you're right about b+3 strings actually being a mixup, I was more leaning towards the fact that they generally aren't solid. You throw them out hoping that you've conditioned the player enough or mixed up your options enough to the point where the opp wont guess correctly. When they hit you get a pretty mediocre reward, when they are blocked you eat a full combo. That might be the problem in general though, for me at least. There's no real option to play solid. d+1 and d+3 would be nice tools to build a solid neutral around but then of course we go back to what you highlighted with his slow walk speed.