Alright since the final review has started here are some stuff that I would like to be addressed:
*Phoenix having a 19 frame overhead. I disagree that she "needs" a fast overhead like that. Any buff she gets to her mix up ability means it is easier for her to get to 5 bars. Without meter stealing TAC and with someone like Vergil nerfed Phoenix is in a very good place so every buff has to be considered twice or we would end up with Vanilla Phoenix again where everyone starts putting her at the back. The transformation hyper is the big buff and I am fine with that but the fast overhead has to go.. it's too over the top.
You know my feeling on this one.
*Chris probably needs a good way to mix up but making the overhead forward Heavy is not the right solution. The move has other functionality that would be ruined if it got a 20+ frame start up. A good solution to this would be that Chris gains a "new" move at back Heavy but the this new move is merely the slower version of Stun rod that hits overhead. Or you can charge the stun rod for some frames until it gains overhead property. I like the charge idea because it's a stun rod, you can have the stun rod flash some lightning when it reaches the threshold where it can hit high. As far as mobility goes I think more importantly Chris needs a better way to protect underneath him or shoot straight forward. Shooting straight forward is not really possible because it would be an animation change but we can give him more priority on his j.S. Or give him a double jump but I don't like that.
Why don't we just increase the hitstun on s.M to balance out the increased f.M startup?
*Cap sucks in this patch. The #1 reason is that his DP still leads to nothing unlike the rest of the cast who either get a combo or at least a hyper. IMO the only way to improve the DP is that it can be canceled on hit into one of his Shield Slash so he can get a combo. I don't want to give him a tool that allows him to make his DP safe, enough characters have that and it's derpy as hell but being able to cancel it into a Shield Slash on hit would lead into bigger damage. It would be a nice high risk high reward move rather than what it is now which is a low reward high risk move.
Another way to improve Cap is to improve his Charging Star assist. Give it more knockback and hit stun so its like a second Rapid Slash.
Cap doesn't have a safe DHC but that's fine because he is played as a point. A lot of point characters have invincible hypers that they can use to bail themselves out and DHC into something else. Cap has that like Iron Fist, Chun Li, X23 and a few other characters who otherwise don't have a safe DHC.
Why don't we make grounded Shield Slash dash cancelable and let his Stars and Stripes cancel into Shield Slash on block or hit? ;-)
*I don't know how we can further improve Tron, She Hulk, Nemesis, Ghost Rider without going over the change limit. Ghost Rider's problem is still mix up and mobility... he is still weak to chicken block and he still can't really touch fliers (if someone does super jump air dash up and use projectiles Ghost Rider can't touch that). A good way to fix that about Ghost Rider would be to make his diagonal wall bounce chain air OK. That would give him that extra angle to touch fliers on top of the straight forward one. I don't want to give Ghost Rider a good mix up tool because he has chip on block now, even if he doesn't open you up he is still gaining advantage. Once he has 3 bars he has a legitimate mix up tool that opens you up and Ghost Rider can get to that much meter without even opening you up. Tron's up close normals generally suck and she can be easily anti aired especially by Wolverine. Don't know how to fix that although she does have an improved Gustaff Flame now.
I really think you are underrating our new Ghost Rider. He's not nearly as bad as people think. However, one thing we could do is make his jumps heavier. He's a bit floaty, and if we made him fall faster then j.S could maybe link into s.H on hit by itself. This is probably his biggest problem. j.S is fantastic, and it hits people a lot, but he doesn't convert off of it without an assist.
Tron Bonne should get her minimum air dash height completely removed. Let her do j.H and j.L overheads very low to the ground. Right now it's too easy to anti-air her. Then I think she would be fine.
Nemesis...I don't know what to do to help him out, but I agree that he needs more help.
She-Hulk was very strong in Vanilla, and I think she's going to be solid here. She has amazing mix-ups and resets, and if we make her too good at getting in then she will become too strong. We buffed her lamp post move significantly, so she will be better than ever now.
*While I don't think Iron Fist, Hulk and Haggar are that good they are 3 unique characters in that they still hit like trucks. I don't want to give IF anymore buffs because as far as the rushdown characters go he has the highest damage among them. Hulk even with the nerf would do insane damage as would Haggar. I guess Haggar would struggle with damage more as even right now he just barely kills because he spends all resources to kill. Hard to balance this. Plus these characters have health advantage and they got decent buffs. I think one buff on Hulk and Haggar each would be nice but nothing too big.
Aerial gamma charge on Hulk, and on Haggar...?
Overall I think the patch is good now for the most part, these are just the stuff that was bugging me a bit. I think it's important to get some outside perspective now because I feel as if the committee members have been tapped out in terms of insight and information. We did the best we could but we are just 4. I think it's time we start disseminating the patch changes on characters individually and see what the character specialists have to say about it.
I think that we won't get a lot of great opinions even from character specialists because our changes only make sense within the context of the entire patch, and only we really know this patch that well.
I went through and thought about what needs to change, and I'm trying to bridge the gap with some of our "point oriented" characters still. That's a big dent in our balance, in my opinion. No one will pick Spider-man when he has a bad assist now that so many other characters have good ones. I think I have some interesting ideas, and I want to know what you all think.
Here are some suggestions for Chris:
-reduce his shotgun startup
-f.H overhead; I think this needs to happen
-f.H staggers
-double jump
-aerial gunshots now cause Chris to fall faster (recoil, makes his aerial game safer)
-j.S hitbox increased
Captain America:
-shield slash (ground) is now dash-cancelable on hit or block
-stars and stripes can now cancel into shield slash on block or hit (combos)
-shield slash M removed as an assist; replaced with stars and stripes
-shield slash L (assist) hits on the way back even when Captain America gets hit
-Charging Star H now causes Rapid Slash-like pushback on block
Firebrand:
-Chaos Tide now persists on tagout; the helper remains on screen hovering over the opponent when Firebrand is tagged out; the helper will swipe whenever Firebrand is called as an assist
Haggar:
-c.H (assist) is fully invincible as a crossover counter until its recovery frames begin (100% safe and invincible crossover counter)
-c.H now links into Rapid Fire Fist (solo conversions off of throws)
-Giant Haggar Press is now projectile invincible
Jill:
-new assist: machine gun volley; she jumps out onto the screen and fires one small spray of 1 durability bullets that cover the screen. It would basically be a photon shot, but the startup would be larger since she has to jump into the air first, and then she would land near the opponent like with her hyper. It wouldn't require a new animation, and now she would have an interesting assist option.
Nemesis suggestions (not all of these, just ideas):
-passive super armor on ground dashes
-deadly reach moves now absorb enemy health
-deadly reach moves now negate projectiles
-c.H travel time increased significantly
-backwards ground dash is now startup invincible (back dash into command grab like BlazBlue's Tager)
-aerial normals all have their startup reduced by 2 frames
-tracking rocket assist (I don't know why we didn't talk about this before; he has the animation for a tracking rocket shot from his hyper)
Phoenix Wright suggestions (all toward making non-turnabout Wright more fearsome):
-reduce discard (investigation) startup; increase projectile durability to 8
-reduce investigate startup
-improve his various present evidence (trial and turnabout) pieces so they are all useful
Shuma-Gorath:
-Hyper Mystic Smash assist - he throws one clone that ignores projectiles (like Frank's Hammer Throw H)
Spider-man:
-Web Ball H (assist) now auto-aims at opponents; captured aerial enemies fall to the ground (now he has a good assist)
-Web Swing (assist) now causes a soft knockdown
Thor:
-air dash range increased (better command throw ability)
Tron Bonne:
-bandit boulder is now cancelable somehow (give her better approach options)
-minimum air dash height removed
Hulk:
-aerial gamma charge, or maybe he creates a hitbox when he lands from a big "thud"!
She-Hulk:
-lamppost attack negates projectiles (helps her get in and buffs an assist option)
Strider:
-formation A1 can no longer be negated by normal attacks
X-23:
-rage trigger assist; only the first series of slashes
-an assist where X-23 runs forward, ignoring projectiles, and hits an enemy into a crumple state (uses Weapon X Prime animation)
