Just nerfing the top tiers is probably enough in his case. He wins by staying still/minor buffs.
He's definitely "fair" right now, but I don't think that translates to good. Doesn't help that his three worst matchups are some of the more popular tournament characters (Nash/Chun/Guile). I'm okay with EX Bullhorn staying how it is. Urien's reversal is invincible and he gets meatied for free too.
I've mained a lot of average-to-terrible characters over the past decade. Usually characters that other people complain about but don't main. Staying still and not fixing the problems that those characters had did not get them anywhere in updates to the game. Birdie had a lot of problems in Season 1 that weren't necessarily confined to "loses to X character because X is top tier." If the only changes were that top tier characters were getting nerfed, Birdie would probably be fine but other characters are getting buffed. If Birdie's real bad matchups of Nash/Chun/Guile turns into Vega/Dhalsim/Ibuki, Birdie doesn't really move up. Everyone talks about how great Birdie is and how he doesn't need any buffs, but when it comes to winning CPT tournaments, he's at zero. I haven't even heard of him winning a lot of small regional tournaments. Like 2/3rds of the cast has already won a CPT tournament so I would not feel bad at all if they overbuffed Birdie. I'd rather they buffed him enough to ensure a quality player like XYZZY can win a major with him than go another year of "welp, Birdie still sucks."
Regular throw nerf is interesting. I wonder if it affects grappler ability to follow up the pressure.
Laura's tourney result is also pretty abysmal after Crimson's surprise launch week win.
Oh, I also think Laura is currently trash but at least she won a CPT tournament. There's a lot of pushback online on buffing Birdie and it doesn't make sense to me lol. Ibuki's getting massive buffs. Gief's getting buffs. Vega is getting buffed. Dhalsim and Bison are getting huge huge buffs. And Birdie's supposed to be okay with staying the same?
It looks like their priority with her is removing the derp. If that means she isn't tournament viable anymore, so be it. I think they heard a lot of complaints about how she plays and are responding accordingly to that. I think she'll still be decent. She's not a bad character even though plenty of Mika mains will tell you even now she's not that good.
Changes start on Dec. 20th.
I can understand the reasoning, his quick scythes make us slow to react to his forward dash pressure / throw.
Maybe Nash and Chun will get better. Hoping so. Dunno if Nash's changes affect the matchup that much. Chun got some buffs too, so we'll see how that all pans out but definitely got nerfed in some of the ways that gave Birdie problems. IMO Birdie-Karin is 5-5, but I guess now it's clearly advantage Birdie.
Ohhhh "more" recovery means longer recovery, not less.
Can anyone confirm or deny? This would be a huge change to the game.
That was bs from day1 and she didn't have it in all of the betas, either. You can't have your strongest 50/50 character get you to the corner after one medium hit.
Karin is not a bad match-up for Birdie, it's maybe her worst.
Nah that's close to 5-5. Karin Discord says Chun is her worst. Karin wrecks Birdie once she touches him. Not saying it's easy to touch him, but she has the tools to do it.
Nah, you do a meaty move on Urien and if he reversals, you block and Crush Counter. Yeah mashing can beat armor though.
No big deal he is a Dictator main.
After lariat hits, opponent can't backroll so you get pretty much guaranteed oki. Lariat also hits consistently in combos even if opponent is crouching. I forgot what else they gave him, but that alone is pretty good.
Still not enough, how is he going to get in on sim to do such a combo if sim has better buttons and is faster now...Weeps....
Bison's dashing in trigger more than made up for his slow walk speed, it is so fast and sometimes impossible to react to, now they're making his normal walkspeed much faster....SMH. I'm not sure that's balance at all, they've just made Bison much more annoying to deal with....I'm pretty sure we will have an influx of bisons with this...Hell, perhaps even I will have a stab at the great dictator at this point.
The removal of meterless reversals and the fact that some characters no longer have 3-frame jabs (vega's st.lk) alone means that his pressure is even better than it was before.
Zangief doesn't have nearly that bad of a time as most claim against Dhalsim, it's 'just' a very nuanced match-up that a lot of players don't have the patience or mental fortitude for. The only real change (depending on which are likely to be final) that he has to be mindful of come Season 2, is the flame carpet no longer disappearing upon V-Reversal. Match-up dynamic will probably remain borderline identical outside of that - although lariat might be an ample threat now with it stuffing low hits - until official word comes out concerning the remaining Zangief tweaks.
So the meter gain nerf means that using a bar for an EX Reversal is now even more costly. Plus this is also a nerf to characters like Cammy,Chun,Guile, etc. Basically characters who tend to spam moves and normals.
TBH Sim SHOULD have an easy time against Gief. Obviously sucks for Gief, but if Sim can't keep Gief out, then how the hell does he keep a character with actual mobility out? lol
"there will be no changes from PSX to the release date of December 20th."
I love when they do that and eat a fat combo. It's usually a nice counter-hit, too.
Not if you react to it
I don't think it would be too bad if Ken did. The cr.mk doesn't really have that much range, it would still be punishable on v-skill cancel, V-Trigger cancel will always be good, and unless they changed it, even a point blank cr.mk still wouldn't be enough to be in throw range so that's less of an issue.
