D'Vorah got the following two nerfs in today's unexpected patch:
- D'Vorah - reduced the cancel advantage after Pterothorax combo (Towards + FP, FP, BP) by 2
- D’Vorah (Swarm Queen) - must be in the Bug Bomb (Wasp Grenade) held loop for 3 frames before you can dash cancel out of it
While I can understand the first nerf, I can not fathom why NRS chose to implement to second nerf. The first nerf toned down her main pressure string which previously enabled her to have a 50/50 after the opponent blocked the move. The opponent's best option was to take the last hit and get out of the pressure at a cost of ~4% damage. She no longer has the option to 50/50 the opponent because she was previously +16, giving her a 1 frame window to use her F2 (15 frame overhead) without a gap, but she is now +11.
The second nerf causes all of her bug cancel combos on hit to be much harder to execute. Her overhead starter previously had a 6 frame window and it now has a 3 frame window to combo into 212. Her low starter and her 112 starter (which is her best punishing move) previously had 4 frame windows which have now changed to 1 frame windows to combo into 212.
I think the second nerf has no real purpose besides forcing tighter execution on an already execution heavy character. I've gone into training mode for countless hours perfecting her cancels and now I'm forced to do it all over again. Her damage output is in line with the rest of the cast so I don't see why it's necessary for her execution to be exponentially harder.
While it is certainly possible to perform the 1 frame combos, the execution barrier to play D'Vorah has increased drastically and is certainly off putting for both D'Vorah mains and prospective D'Vorah players.
D'Vorah previously got a damage reduction nerf in the "Kenshi patch" which was understandable and acceptable because it didn't affect her core gameplay. I just think NRS went a bit too far with this patch.
@colt
EDIT: Adding this post to the OP because I don't think many of you understand what my issue is here.
For those saying that the second nerf is justified because D'Vorah is "too good" and therefore, let's make her bnbs significantly harder to do, it doesn't answer the question. The top D'Vorah players will still go into the lab and force themselves to adjust to a 1 frame link but my question is WHY? What does it accomplish? She still has the same tools and once the players put another 24+ hours of labbing to learn the execution, will NRS say, "Ok time to take it out completely."?
It doesn't make sense that a nerf makes her execution turn from 4 frame links to 1 frame links. Everyone that is saying that is a necessary nerf, tell me why. The "We can still do it so it's fine" reason is complete garbage.
If NRS wanted to get rid of them, they'll probably do another patch to get rid of them completely, meaning ALL that lab time to execute a 1 frame link is a complete waste. If NRS wanted to keep them in the game, why is it necessary to make them 1 frame links instead of 4 frame links?
If the purpose of the nerf was solely to reduce her pressure, that could have been done differently.