Kanazawa CHINJUUZUKAN

The command changed to HCB from back clearly adds some difficulty in pulling it off. Sure you can do HCF no problem when you don't feel rushed, but in a tight&fast paced match, pulling off HCB P+G is crearly harder than pulling off back P+G.

Suppose you block Akira's P,P in a crucial situation(-8), which is just throw counterable. HCB in this situation will be much harder to do than to do back P+G. There are a lot of other situations where the command difference does matter such as after evading a quick move by doing EDTEG and then going for a throw. The window here'd be different depends on what move you evaded, but when you evade a small move and then wants to punish your opp with a throw, the command of throw DOES matter because of a very small window you have to use as a nitaku situation.


With that all being said, I still believe that it'd been better if Kage's TFT stayed 270 as it was in the beta version of FT. I think Kage needs a strong throw game so taking out a direction from his throw game will do too much damage on his game.


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Ask any decent wolf player doing 270 throws or PGS, we all do it pretty much 100% and it is not an obstacle.

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I disagree. Ask any decent Akira player doing SPOD, they all do it pretty much 100%, but it is an obstacle to pull it off during a tight situation like after you got punched in your shoulder ram recovery. The degree of difficulty does matter regardless of one being able to pull it off consistently in a traning mode or in a none-rushed situation. Why does people do a low P so much as a RN when they get suprised instead of doing a launcher? They just can't react to the situation fast enough to get themselves ready to buffer the command of a launcher in time, hence settling for something that's easy to pull off(a LP).

 

In my opinion, there is a big difference between 270 and hcb. Hcb is such a natural and easy motion, and everyone has been doing it for years on top of that. 270 is not natural. You can do it fast, if you are thinking about it, but not nearly as easily as you can do hcb.

 

Maddy, great post as always!

I definitely won't go so far as eliminating +. One thing that could be done however is to perhaps make + a nitaku situation instead of a guaranteed DP combo. This will force Kage players to +, which is a slightly weaker throw and more difficult to execute.

 

I'd have to disagree with your statement of being able to do things like PGS or SPOD in training only. I'm referring to in game situation, people can pull off anything in training, it's not even worth talking about. How about making Kage's TFT hcb always but you need to do it like PGS for the high toss? Really, wolf NEEDS to be able to do PGS in a game situation, especially since it is for GS to be a threat in those -8 situations. It was pretty stupid to say that people have trouble doing it at that situation because it was designed almost specifically for those situations. I agree with the motion being hard to do in certain situations, but isn't that the point of making things more difficult for better rewards? Seriously, why would Akira players go for SPOD as reverse nitaku? Why do akira players do the harder combos involving buffering for just a few points more dmg? Saying that people won't risk it because it's hard is such a stupid idea to put it frankly, this is why people practice and practice, so be able to do this sorts of things in a match. So really, to be competitive at all you must be able to do such things to even be competitive at the lowest playing field.

Maddy, I think this is a case where your faith in the game clouded your judgement. As an akira player you should know this best. Even though something is more difficult to do, it doesn't mean it's something that can't be mastered after a few weeks of playing.

 

Hmm, I think you may have misinterpreted Maddy's post and the spirit behind what he wrote.

I'm jumping in only to add that Wolf doesn't NEED PGS at all...270 is for people who can't do PGS consistently (e.g. Heruru according to Summah). PGS is really only worth 80 points damage against experienced opponents anyway.

 

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I think Kage needs a strong throw game so taking out a direction from his throw game will do too much damage on his game.


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Explain why Kage needs a stronger throw game than others to be effective.

Most of his attacks are uncounterable, including the launchers and combo starters. You can simply play the poke and probe game forever and wait for a chance to throw after blocking a throw counterable move from your opponent. While its true that several chars can be played the same way, they dont have the strength of Kage's throw game to be as effective.

Kage has one of the strongest throw games in FT i.e (RO/80ish pts), (60pts), (53pts), (45?pts) and a catch throw. Other than Wolf, I cannot think of any other character that has a better throw game than him.

Imo, a more difficult command for TFT certainly helps to nerf his throw game a little, even if its only marginal. What I'd suggest is to reduce his throw to 50 pts, that way, he'd have 2 decent throws + a very good throw. Even then, his throw game would still be better than most characters, but its prolly fair since he doesnt have any non-stance fast combo starters.

 

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Saying that people won't risk it because it's hard is such a stupid idea to put it frankly, this is why people practice and practice, so be able to do this sorts of things in a match.

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You didn't get what I was saying. The degree of difficulty matters in a suprised situation.

If you are slow in reflex, you will eat a lot of stuff like P, throw in the game.
If you are faster than that, you can LP out of it in suprise.
If you are more skilled, you can EDTEG out of it, but it's only when your reflex is good enough, and your EDTEG has been well practiced.
If you are even more skilled, you can mix up with EDTEG and RN with your biggest attack. That's what high level Japanese players do. Mukki uses Knee in disadvantage as RN, but you don't see others being able to do it a lot. Mostly low or high punches.

The reason why Knee is not being used by most of players more often is because of its command. They can probably all do it 100% in a wall combo, but in a tight&suprised situation, normally people'd be busy doing simple move like low P or just freezing up and then eating a throw if opp goes for it.

I am talking about mental preparation and anticipation in a situation. If I use Shouder ram and get it blocked, I do DTEG and wait for a guaranteed punch. If someone punches me, I would go for SPOD. The difficulty of doing SPOD doesn't matter here as I am mentally ready. However,in a match, when I get punched out of nowhere, it's hard for me to go for SPOD. I would be lucky if I don't freeze up and do anything(edteg, attack), but SPOD'd be hard. Not to mention, doing two command moves like yoho(33P) would be harder to pull off.


If you think you don't freeze up and are able to pull off any hard move out of suprise, I think you'd be at the very top level Japanese players level. I've traveled around the country and met most of players in the U.S. and I don't think any player in the U.S. is at that level quite yet.



For Kage needing a good throw game, I don't feel like going into all the mess again. That's just what I think, and I won't try to make you agree with me on that. Your point has a point, but it's certainly argueable in my book.

-maddy-

 

Hey Andrew, I didn't write what you quoted, but I do think there are two other characters that have throwing games on par with Kage's (I think Wolf has the best throw game period):

Aoi:
60 - 75 points
52 - 68 points
45 points
67 points

Goh:
70 points
52 - 70 points
47 points
65 points

For comparison sake, here are Kage's throws in FTa once again:
48 points
53 points
60 points (55 points in FTb)
75 - 80 points

If you're curious about Wolf:
80 - 100 points (longer throw range)
70 points
0 points
75 points (longer throw range)

Now, before anyone says "but Kage has so many safe and good moves!" ask yourself whether Aoi and Goh have safe and good moves, and whether they have any additional tools that Kage does not have.

As for why I think Wolf has the best throw game when one of his throws doesn't take any damage without a wall...that's rooted in my belief that a character really only needs 3 good throws to be competitive. If my opponent is escaping three throws or more, I would be doing other things like attacking, delay attacking, catch throws, etc. instead of guessing a fourth throw.

 

Hi, alucard. As of today, there's a news that in FT ver.B, Kage's 42P+G will get nerfed in terms of damage. Sega is doing what you are suggesting. Good point.

Akira's P,P being -8 on block was brought up not because it's "just throw counterable". In a real match, if you mastered fuzzy guard in -1 situation, which is after blocking a high P, you normally do fuzzy sort of out of habit. If Akira does P,P since second hit is mid, you are going to get hit by that normally.

People don't really care or fear about it as it does a crap damage and leaves Akira in disadvantage on hit. Also it's TC on block. Granted, if you were anticapting P,P you can block it and could punish it with 270 or whatever if you are Wolf. But, normally you get to block that move out of suprise, and it's hard for you to do 270 or even HCB to throw Akira in this case as you'd easily lose a frame or two in suprise. In this kind of situation, clearly a simple directional throw helps a lot, which happened to be TFT in Evo(b P+G).

Of course the P,P example was just an example. There'd be other cases that I could make a better case of out, but I can't think of them at the moment.

Hopefully, what I wrote make more sense to you now.

-maddy-

 

u forgot

TFT can also lead to RO...

it's criminal that u omitted it from ur list XD

 

wolf's throw game is damaging, but it's also predictable. here are some of the reasons why posting up that list is not the full picture.

1) kage doesnt have a weak throw game, it's average on every direction, and good on 2 --- it's surprizing because of his character class, unlike goh, wolf (dunno about aoi) kage seems to be alot more stable with 80 - 85% of his attack game imho therefore it is even more of a luxury to play that throw game. that's why it's a small issue. not because of the raw stats. i dont believe any of the characters you mentioned are that balanced, and we all know why with individual issues.

2) kage has 4 decent directions, this is difficult to deal with in the first place. even if you are able to quad TE nitaku (and not likely with the amount of choices kage can put on you), he still has P+G to chip away at your health, so it is always a tough choice game where as wolf's is easier covered i think. with wolf, he has 3 strong directions and all of them are standard TE reflex. even in a fast situation, any player will cover forwards. backward and df will be exicuted by anybody who can triple TE and i think it's not that hard. kage's strongest throws are backward and down, this is much harder to crack on reflex, and with kage's attack game, his throws will come out much more unpredictably -- so it works well together.

3) wolf's new direction is throw counterable if escaped, so i wouldnt jump up in the air about it's new throw reach so much. it will be a choice among the next best thing. and df,df+p+g is low P counterable so wolf even takes risks with max damage throws. who else does this? kage? ---- no

4) relying on a throw game period is useless in VF.... you need good setups and that is what also adds to the strong throw game factor.. if wolf threw his arms out all day trying to hug people, he will get trashed, it is not much compensation to having an unstable attack game --- but that's just VF life. i dont expect every character to have what you want, but kage has quite alot i think.

and that's all --------- heh, that's quite alot to moan about in one post.. im gonna go to bed.. zZzZ

 

I understand your point about doing RN in a surprised situation.

But does that apply to a HCB throw? NO. When did you THROW out of surprise? I can't imagine people who play like that. Chances are you would throw after anticipating something and you are mentally prepared for it. Seeing as any delay of time it would be beat by an attack.

Please think about what I said, I'm not comparing it to the ability to execute difficult moves directly, I'm using it as an example just to show how people eventually learn to do this type of stuff. Even if you want to talk about advanced player being able to do this stuff, isn't that proof enough that it was pointless? People have even said before that the knee follow up after TFT was hard, but what now? Even scrubs can do TFT combos. Difficulty and reaction is something that can be overcomed with time and practice. I don't claim that I have the same degree of those skills as high level players, as I don't have nearly the enough playtime or competition as those guys. But it's obvious that after a session with those players, you gain some of those skills rather quickly, and it's something that can be maintained or bettered by constant play and experience.

Well, I guess there is always the camp who believes the changes sega makes are always the correct ones. The game is now this way and that's just the way it is. I think any decent kage player though, would agree that a hcb motion barely hinders their ability to do TFT throws. As most decent players they play against will be actively escaping the TFT, the only time where a TFT would strike is usually in a choreographed situations, and thus, the surprise factor is largely null and void.

 

BK, Wolf's 270 is not throw counterable if escaped. I'm surprised you don't know this as a Wolf player who's played FT extensively in Japan.

Srider, the HCB definitely makes a difference. Not a huge one, but an important difference nonetheless. I think this is the SPIRIT of Maddy's post, but you can strangle him on the details as much as you want. Personally, the biggest thing for me is ECDing and going for a throw. I usually lose 1-2 frames because of the HCB motion, and that's sometimes enough to make the difference in landing the throw and getting MCed by an attack.

Summah, on stages without walls, Kage is better because of his TFT. On stages with walls, Wolf, Aoi, Jeffry, etc. are better. Pick your poison. /versus/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

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Personally, the biggest thing for me is ECDing and going for a throw. I usually lose 1-2 frames because of the HCB motion, and that's sometimes enough to make the difference in landing the throw and getting MCed by an attack.

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I was going to talk about HCF after box stepping or ECDing. 1 or 2 frames can change a situation from a nitaku situation into a situation where your opp can duck to avoid your throw depeding on situations. Of course HCF or 270 or whatever can be easy with enough practice, but my point is there's difference between b P+G and those, hence command of throws does matter.

Suppose when you get staggered by Kage's side kick in a match. You struggle and decide to stay crouch, but your opponent staggers you again with another side kick. You have to struggle again to get out of the 2nd stagger, and this time your opponent decide to switch and go for a throw. Luckily you stayed crouch again after the struggling, so you see your opponent whiffing a throw motion over your head, but the situation already shook yourself up mentally.

Think about how easy / hard it would be to pull off HCB in a situation like this. You can still say "yeah it's easy. I can do that no problem", but would pulling off 270 or even HCB be as easy as doing b P+G in this kind of situation, too?


This is what I'd call a mentally unprepared situation. You just barely manage to duck the throw after 2 consecutive heavy staggers, so by the time you reconize the situation that your opponent whiff a throw over your head, you'd be easily behind a frame or two in your advantage.

When a match goes faster than the pace that you can feel comfortable with, having to input more complex command does make a difference. Especially when you get overwhelmed by your opponent speed everything becomes harder. If this is the case, you'd see how easy command makes a big differece.



-maddy-

 

If you are losing frames from ECD into TFT....

or into

imagine people having to do

or ** and even then it must be done in 8 frames. The emphasis is on transitioning from to . This is a much more difficult motion on top of the frame restriction. This is also the same reason why people don't modify dblpm with (if they are smart).

Not only does a wolf player have more difficulty and restrictions, but the damage is largely very similar. Granted, if you do it slowly you will get attacked out of, but this is the point of my post. Wolf players have to do just the same and possibly more if they want to use PGS in a surprise situation, so in terms of making a real difference, maybe it just makes it a bit more work and getting used to for Kage players to be on par. Even getting counter hit jabbed and doing EDTEG is alot of commands in a surprise situation, but there is no balancing issue here. It just becomes something people have to get used to do. It just doesn't seem to make sense as TFT is kage's strongest throw for a character with 4 directions. Look at other characters with similar amount of throws, the strongest one is a 270. It just doesn't make sense that in the beta version TFT was 270 but changed to hcb in the full version.

Obviously, the command is Different, but the point here is that if a command change is used to balance the gameplay, then it didn't make enough of a difference. Now if they also limited the combo that can be done, then that is another issue. The only thing done here is the command change, and it just seems funny to me when kage players make is sound like it's a huge obstacle when other characters must do the same command or even more for a throw that is not as damaging or versatile.

I think I will try to avoid using wolf as an example to avoid the bad taste left over from before. It's just coincidence that I've had more experience with wolf so it's easier to compare.

p.s. the throw list that you've provided makes it even more obvious that Kage needs to have a direction heavily weakened. Compared to Goh and Aoi, he is completely even with two stronger throw directions. A character that have a strong evade guessing game similar to akira shouldn't have a throw game this strong. Look at akira now, it seems to me that kage should be tuned somewhat similar to akira in terms of the throw game.

 

I don't know why you brought Wolf into this, since he has strong throws in both HCB and HCF directions and since Maddy's point isn't about Kage vs Wolf (though people keep twisting every conversation about Kage to be). Wolf also has a really good throw which flows like butter from a CD direction. Not to mention the longer throw range so he can buffer in the throw a lot earlier from ECD. Also, I disagree with your conclusion on Aoi's and Goh's throw games. From looking at the numbers, their throw games are on par with Kage's and each other's--that's why I posted them.

You mentioned Kage having a strong evade guessing game...are you saying Aoi doesn't one?? (Personally I don't think Kage's is that strong).

And by Kage having a similar throw game as Akira...are you saying that throw game aside, Kage has a simliar strength of attack as Akira??

 

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BK, Wolf's 270 is not throw counterable if escaped. I'm surprised you don't know this as a Wolf player who's played FT extensively in Japan.


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i just checked the FT master guide, it's -8 escaped.....

oh look, i just gave maddy another reference /versus/images/graemlins/smirk.gif --- have fun guys.

 

I'm not comparing wofl and kage, it's just an example to show that a hcb motion is not a big deal at all. I'm not trying to twist this into a comparison. I'm just saying that a hcb motion is no big change at all especially given that other characters have had to do the same motion for throws not nearly as strong as TFT. Obviously it's a bit harder than a single direction throw, the point is moot here. Look at what happened to lion's throw game, if they kept the uf direction but made it harder to do, it still sucks that you have to keep the uf direction in mind when you are playing against lion. The initial point wasn't even about TFT, it was about Kage's amount of throw directions. The reason I brought up TFT was because making it hcb hardly made a difference at all. Saying that it's already hard to do in a surprise situation basically means that kage players just want to have it easy, since other characters have to do 270 for their strongest throws. This is what differentiates a good player and an intermediate player imo, and I'm sure you and maddy would both agree with me here since you two are the one talking about the ability to do the motion in a surprised situation. Even if it did make a difference, the fact that you two are saying that it should be the easier of the two (hcb and 270) implies that TFT should still be easier to input. That is the point of discussion. This is like saying SPoD should be easier since it's hard to do in a surprise situation. Why do we just make it a hcb motion. It surprises me that both of you are not looking at the degree of difficulty but simply at only the increase of difficulty.

Look at it this way, hcb motion is 5 inputs, what if they made it 4 inputs of +. It's less input, but the degree of difficulty is exponentially higher. There is a huge difference in this case. So the key point to consider is the degree of difficulty, and not the increase of difficulty. Really, a hcb motion is barely any difference. Since a motion beginning with forward is not very unusual. A 270 back motion, however, would be marginally more difficult since it begins with either a or motion. This would make it much more difficult to execute but stay within the realm of fairness since this is something other characters also must do for their best throws.

You can say you don't personally think Kage's (blank) game is strong, and people can say (blank) character's (blank) game is not strong. Why would people believe your opinion if you have other opinions about their character. Usually people think their own character is weak at certain aspects because they play them. The only fact here that you can look at is that many of kage's setups and pokes are dependent on evade direction similar to akira's oki game. I never said aoi's evade game is weak, but Kage's TFT + + is already 60 damage where as aoi must do a 270 and then a hcf + for 60 dmg. Kage can do even more if you can do the TFT followups. In order for Aoi to get the most damage for her and directions, she must do a chain throw that can be escape with two windows, or buffered with a . If not, the damage for her throws are not nearly on the level of the numbers you posted. The only direction that is not normally escaped like Kage's is aoi's , and that only does 45 damage, compared to kage's (now) 55 damage. These kinds of things must also be taken into consideration, and the difference is clear.

Akira and kage obviously do not have the same strengths, but look at akira's throw game. 2 useful directions especailly since the throw is much weaker than before. Even if you make one of kage's throws one like akira's throw, he still has an exponentially stronger throw game than akira's. I never said weaken TFT or make it harder to do, I am only claiming that if making the command change was sega's way of balancing, it made almost no difference realisticly as a whole. If they make his current direction throw to one of the existing direction and make his throw one like akira's throw, it'd be much more balanced.

 

BK: -8 doesn't mean throw counterable ya know. Kage's +, for example, is also -8 when escaped.

Srider: I think we've come to the point where we've pretty much said all we've wanted to say already in previous posts.

 

Dude, Kage's TFT wall combo in stages with walls is ON PAR with Jeffrey or Wolf wall combo damages!

And Please dun forget he can ring you out on low walls with either TFT or DPCombo. _I_ O.O _I_