Why Sub Zero Should Not Be Nerfed. The GrandMaster Speaks.

[Moms4lif3]

Sub Zero OH just needs more start up and lower his dmg from his crushing blows. Nothing crazy to nerf on him, I'm glad he is respectable again.

Thank you. Reasonable changes is key.

I feel like the problem is not the nerfing or buffing of characters, but most of the time too many things get changed and it overbuffs a character (Supergirl in IJ2?) or kills him (Aquaman in IJ2? I felt he was still pretty good tho ^^ ).

 

[RM Ree]

Make the second hit of f24 OH strong a hug where he pulls the opponent in and says “I’m sorry.”

 

[Apex Kano]

Thank you. Reasonable changes is key.

I feel like the problem is not the nerfing or buffing of characters, but most of the time too many things get changed and it overbuffs a character (Supergirl in IJ2?) or kills him (Aquaman in IJ2? I felt he was still pretty good tho ^^ ).

Not sure if his OH is reactable offline, but if you giving him a 50/50 on a game that was promised no 50/50s than I need his OH to be a tad bit slower. His slide is really fast, and his low kick is tuff to punish depending on your character.

Make the second hit of f24 OH strong a hug where he pulls the opponent in and says “I’m sorry.”

This would be a great addition if there was Friendships. I need it whenever I'm fighting him. Feel like I'm being bullied.

 

[sub_on_dubs]

Make the second hit of f24 OH strong a hug where he pulls the opponent in and says “I’m sorry.”

Sounds like a command grab to me. He needs it.

 

[Jeddite]

I'd prefer they open up the toolkit, let us do custom variations in tournament play, then start talking about nerfs and buffs.

What good does it do us to tweak numbers and frames on strings if we are playing with sub-optimal kits with the promise of more to come?

Meh. Have faith in the elder gods.

 

[Moms4lif3]

Not sure if his OH is reactable offline, but if you giving him a 50/50 on a game that was promised no 50/50s than I need his OH to be a tad bit slower. His slide is really fast, and his low kick is tuff to punish depending on your character.



This would be a great addition if there was Friendships. I need it whenever I'm fighting him. Feel like I'm being bullied.

Offline you can fuzzyguard the low-oh mix. But it is only 6 frames difference. I think the low is 11f and the oh 17frames, neither is reactable. IF the low was 11f and the oh 20, it would make the fuzzy WAY more reliable and skilled players could not be 50/50ed, unless under a lot of pressure.
I really believe a couple more frames difference would not at all kill the mix, for most casuals the change would not even make a difference.

 

[Iconic Horror]

Well he and others either need to be toned down or the other characters all need some upgrades. Either way that OH right now feels unfair, can't even react to it and i shouldn't be left guessing just to be hit by a whole kombo. HEY my man kollector has 50/50's too, but oh wait.. they're both unsafe and only provide a knockdown. I met some guy with a custom variation that would just do a combo, restand me with an ice puddle, and then 50/50 me again just to reset the situation.

 

[Kroaken]

Preaching the truth as always

 

[Moms4lif3]

Kollector’s 50/50 is a good example of a balanced mix, although I feel this really is high risk and super low reward. I probably would almost never go for it. Not sure if I would like every characters mix to be like that. Except game winning situations, it doesn’t feel worth the risk at all

 

[Sazbak]

They should take Kold Shoulder away from DoW. That way he only has one special move in ex ice ball and less damage overall.

Well said. I can personally live with this change.

 

[MK9]

Like

Not going happen in this day and age. It would have been hilarious to see the reaction of today's gamers to old fighting games that were actually broken, but people played them anyway and had fun. The mentality back in the day was to try to overcome really cheap tactics by just outplaying your opponent and avoid putting yourself in a situation where you could lose. I'm glad games are way more balanced than they used to be, but the nerf culture is definitely a problem that has no end in sight unfortunately.

the mk2 do fatality freeze during regular game and it stayed on screen and if you hit it you got frozen, let clock run out, u win... lol the good ole days.

 

[Iconic Horror]

Kollector’s 50/50 is a good example of a balanced mix, although I feel this really is high risk and super low reward. I probably would almost never go for it. Not sure if I would like every characters mix to be like that. Except game winning situations, it doesn’t feel worth the risk at all

that's why i used it. i think it made for a good analogy

 

[OutworldKeith]

Lol it ain’t even been a month. Some characters are better than others, but we should relax and just grind.

 

[Lokheit]

yeah besides that bring back his clone in all his variations. that would make him perfectly balanced. /irony off

You meant sarcasm.

 

[TheJaquio]

It's week 2 people, can we stop overreacting? This happens every game, where there is strong initial outcry against some of the high tier characters and NRS nerfs them as a knee-jerk reaction. Then later on, people discover tech with other characters that had been there all along, and they end up better than the former high-tier characters were before their nerfs. Not to mention it's confirmed that other tournament presets are coming, which will likely shake up the entire balance of the game just by itself. Let the game settle a bit before deciding who needs changes.

 

[HAMMER]

If anything; he should get buffs, not nerfs!!

 

[CmC_HAt]

i love the last part when brady gets angry

now seriously, if they nerf SZ they'll start to kill the game early

 

[TheJaquio]

The problem is not that it is there, the problem is that it is SAFE. He doesn't do overhead in ice ball, he does the kicks. As many times as it takes, you still die.
If you guess one right, TOUGH luck. Back in the blender.

Everyone with a mixup should have one option -20 or more. The balanced mixup chars in the game have this. He guesses your mixup, YOU EAT 30% period.

That is the problem here and he mentions none of that, obviously.

Last I checked F24 is -19 and F2xxiceballMB is -15, and neither of them have pushback. His OH options are an easy full combo punish from any character.

 

[RM Ree]

Offline you can fuzzyguard the low-oh mix. But it is only 6 frames difference. I think the low is 11f and the oh 17frames, neither is reactable. IF the low was 11f and the oh 20, it would make the fuzzy WAY more reliable and skilled players could not be 50/50ed, unless under a lot of pressure.
I really believe a couple more frames difference would not at all kill the mix, for most casuals the change would not even make a difference.

His b3 low is 13f and his f2 OH is 19f. If they pushed it to 20f, that’d be cool. I dig round numbers.

In perspective though, his b2 OH in MKX was 18f, and /barely/ punishable on block. Many people felt that was reactable (the scientific threshold of human reaction to stimulus is on average 19f). Also consider the throw break window, I t’s well below 19f and legend has it players still react/ break those.

Also keep in mind guys, Dead of Winter has Kold Shoulder, not slide.

 

[Marinjuana]

His b3 low is 13f and his f2 OH is 19f. If they pushed it to 20f, that’d be cool. I dig round numbers.

In perspective though, his b2 OH in MKX was 18f, and /barely/ punishable on block. Many people felt that was reactable (the scientific threshold of human reaction to stimulus is on average 19f). Also consider the throw break window, I t’s well below 19f and legend has it players still react/ break those.

Also keep in mind guys, Dead of Winter has Kold Shoulder, not slide.

B2 had a longer animation and was done at longer ranges, in those situations it was not effectively 18 frames.

 

[RM Ree]

B2 had a longer animation and was done at longer ranges, in those situations it was not effectively 18 frames.

This is splitting hairs here my guy. The animation is measured in frames, so MKX b2 was actually shorter. And the reason it didn’t always hit at 18f was because of the opponents position (stand, duck, juggle, etc). But the same is true here in MK11.

Forums are great, but when talking about buffing/ nerfing characters misunderstanding things like this can be pretty detrimental. Yeah, Sub-Zero is strong. But is he unfair? Absolutely not.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

Listen, NOBODY should be nerfed! Im getting tired of NRS scene always screaming nerfs when the devs need to start the habit of buffing lower tier characters to catch up to the good ones. Sub does not need any nerfs whatsoever. If anything, i would buff his damage output a bit.

Nerfs are for unintended gameplay. It's not just about character 'levels' in a tier list -- that's what people think about when they're new to this. The devs are thinking about if a given character/mechanic plays the way they want it to, or if something is being abused in a way that doesn't jive with their vision of the meta. And when things are found that significantly distort risk/reward or otherwise have (negative) unintended effects on gameplay, they get nerfed.

Not every nerf is about moving a character up/down a tier list.. Often it's for the sake of a game as a whole. People need to learn to think less linearly about these things.

The real key as far as viability is concerned, imo, is that if you take away a mechanic that is key to a character's gameplay for the aforementioned reasons, you just make sure that there's something else to balance it out.

In either case, it's too early, but it's time to level up our thinking about game balance changes.

 

[Marinjuana]

This is splitting hairs here my guy. The animation is measured in frames, so MKX b2 was actually shorter. And the reason it didn’t always hit at 18f was because of the opponents position (stand, duck, juggle, etc). But the same is true here in MK11.

It's not splitting hairs, you are specifically talking about the reactability of B2. People said that was reactable because Sub would do it in situations where it didn't come out in 18 frames. 18 frame normals are not reactable. Not sure why you repeated what I said about it being slower at longer ranges.

 

[JBeezYBabY]

Nerfs are for unintended gameplay. It's not just about character 'levels' in a tier list -- that's what people think about when they're new to this. The devs are thinking about if a given character/mechanic plays the way they want it to, or if something is being abused in a way that doesn't jive with their vision of the meta. And when things are found that significantly distort risk/reward or otherwise have (negative) unintended effects on gameplay, they get nerfed.

Not every nerf is about moving a character up/down a tier list.. Often it's for the sake of a game as a whole. People need to learn to think less linearly about these things.

In either case, it's too early, but it's time to level up our thinking about game balance changes.

I know what nerfs are needed for. But you can't tell me D'vorah deserved to be destroyed on day -1 before she even started. NRS has proven time and time again that their nerfs are horrible. I'd rather NRS try a different route to make the game more interesting. Make everybody fun to start with giving them dirt THEN adjust that way. But if you start nerfing characters already, that just makes characters unfun to play. Thats just how I see it.

 

[CrimsonShadow]

@JBeezYBabY as a followup I'll give a specific example. When Injustice 2 launched Black Adam was able to throw a ton of stuff out in footsie range with very little risk, end it a few different ways post-cancel and convert literally everything into massive 500pt damage. 'Buffing everyone else' to be just as braindead would serve to make the game stupid (it's not what the meta was intended to be). You don't lower the risk vs. reward ratio for an entire cast to make a game mindless, just because it's out of whack for one character.

Not to mention that in doing that you're likely to break more things than you fix.

The correct call was fixing Black Adam's risk reward+damage potential and that's what they did.