A version of Jaina like this that draws cards instead of rebuying them could actually have a 2.2 speed tatsu!
I intentionally left K at 2.4 because I think it makes for some really interesting decision making on Jainaās part between her 2.4 speed starters.
2: normal draw, 1cp (using it early means you canāt threaten Unstable Power in Desperation)
K: triggers Burning Vigor, 2cp
J: only triggers Burning Vigor in Desperation, 1cp (could recur later)
That makes sense why youād keep it at 2.4 then. We can keep the idea of a non-recurring 2.2 speed move in mind in case it becomes needed during testing.
Iām planning on putting the wiki thread of changes up later today and Iāll probably include this option as A. Jaina to match SF naming convention. Canoncially itās probably Anarchist Jaina but conveniently also could be Alternative Jaina or even Angry Jaina. Now what we need is some character textā¦
āNo more holding back, this arrowās got your name on itā
Iāve made he wiki thread and made all character posts into wikis so anyone can edit them (as youāll probably have seen by now).
Feel free to jump in and add to other character posts if you so wish - thatās after all the point of a wiki. I have to go out soon and canāt do any more till later, but I will be adding more when I get the time.
I started with a format I thought works ok, but obviously those who suggested it (@Hobusu @vengefulpickle) might have better ideas of how to lay it out. My main problem is what to do when there are competing suggestions, but Iāll figure that out for Jaina and Zane specifically as theyāll have the most stuff to collate.
And now Iāve reached my site wide edit limit and canāt make any more progress anyway
I went ahead and put up DeGrey, since despite being fairly strong he never really got any suggestions for changes other than the one in the first post of the wishlist topic (and thus he was simple enough to write up that I didnāt have to feel too nervous about getting something wrong). As a DeGrey player myself I felt like that one suggestion made senseāhe doesnāt really need MHG damage on Final Arbiterāso I decided to include it.
I also adjusted the links in the first post of the Bureau of Balance topic so that they would link to the post here where you said the topic was finished being made instead of the one where you said it was going to be made.
Thinking about Midori, I always thought he was supposed to be sort of a āfake grapplerā, or I guess hybrid grappler is the better term. He doesnāt have the higher hp of a grappler, lacks a throw that beats normal attacks, and canāt even use his normal throws without ending Dragon Form. This is somewhat balanced by how so much of his power is concentrated in dQ and FDB, and that he has more offensive potential overall than your average grappler.
In the FS Fighting Game, Midori is pretty clearly intended to be a full-fledged grappler, with above-average hp, a super armor throw in Dragon Form, and strong normal throws both in and out of Dragon Form. I feel like his Yomi incarnation missed the mark a bit. I was theorycrafting ways to rework him and ended up with these changes:
95 hp
9 damage normal throws
Innate change:
Whenever you block an attack or Joker while in Dragon Form, take no block damage and you may discard that block to return a non-Joker card from your discard pile to your hand instead of drawing a card.
Dragon Form (2*): No longer ends when you reveal non-Dragon attacks/throws
Glimpse (10*) draws a card on use
Jack:
-dJ 2.2 speed
Queen:
-dQ 16 damage 2 CP Ender
King:
-dK 15 damage and has ability to beat normal attacks speed 5.0 and faster just like Rook/Troq K
Ace:
-Wrath of Earth Canāt Combo
-Final Dragon Buster 24+16 (+A) damage (can only pump once)
Summary of Buffs:
+5 hp, +1 damage to throws, can reveal non-Dragon attacks/throws in DF, immune to block damage in Dragon Form (helps vs. Geiger/Quince/Lum/Grave/Jaina), Glimpse draws a card, 2.2 dJ, dK beats 5.0 and faster normal attacks (helps vs. Zane the most)
Summary of Nerfs:
Midori discards his Dragon Form blocks if he chooses to fetch a non-Joker card so theyāre less efficient, dQ is 16 dmg 2 CP Ender, hK/dK deal 2 less damage, Wrath of Earth canāt combo (I felt comboing into 20 off 2.2 dJ would be too strong and make his damage potential less grappler-like), FDB loses a pump
I think overall these changes make Midori a worse character. He now gets crushed even harder in his worst mu. These changes donāt make him into a full grappler just puts even more focus on getting into dragon form.
Midoriās main weaknesses, imo, are 1) really bad early game (because of weak throws) 2) usually requires a lot of build up and can get some awkward hands 3) he is one of the easiest characters to exploit.
More on these points:
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since Midoriās early game throwās top out at 16 damage and shrink his hand size it is very hard to put out a ton of pressure early on even if the opponent has a heavy block range. Even if Midori agro is successful in the early game he can quickly run out of steam and have to try and sneak in awful normal pokes just to try and get back in it. Possible early game agro also makes awkward Midori hands more likely.
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because of his bad throws build up can be difficult. His build up can take a long time and requires specific cards. Unlike Troq where he blocks once and all his throws are now good, he blocks twice and all his throws are now beastly, this on top of having great face cards that he can actually use. Even Rook has better build up then Midori for a couple of reasons. For one playing throws doesnāt shrink his hand and in mu where RA or AA are good the cards needed for build up are less specific.
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On certain hand sizes he needs to do certain things. DF really narrows his range and his discard pile can hurt him more then most. Vendetta is the biggest butthead towards Midori in this regard (Ven is secretly one of Midoriās worst mu).
I think in card form Midori is going to be a really hard character to get right especially in a world where there are 2.4, 2.8, and 3.4 speed attacks that beat block.
Which matchup is that, and how so? Iām surprised.
Outside of specific trouble matchups, grapplers will always have decent early games simply because of how good Defense Mastery + speed dominant & card efficient throws is, though itās true that Midori is the worst of them at abusing this. To some extent I think itās correct for Midori to have the most difficult buildup of the grapplers since the reward is (or should be, Giant Growth and BU are pretty damn strong lol) greater for him. That said, I think his buildup could stand to be improved a bit by just giving Midori more hp to work with. In the trouble matchups where his block/throw range is gimped, Glimpse drawing a card on use along with 2.2 dJ and good olā fashioned Q make him harder to exploit (and normal-crushing dK helps vs. Ven and Zane, among others who may give him trouble).
I was thinking a bit and if I were to overhaul Midori I think it would look something like this:
delete T ability
Move DF to ace
Blocks in DF no longer return cards from discard
95 HP
9 becomes D/B
T ability:
Parry - if you dodge an attack or joker draw a card and instead of playing a follow up card you may deal 8 damage.
DJ to speed 2.2
HQ 7 damage
DQ 12 damage ender
Ace ability
Dragon Form - has a new addition. Upon entering DF retrieve X JQK from the discard. X equals the number of cards discarded when you enter DF +1.
Final Dragon Buster damage is now 20 + 18
The numbers would need playing around with but the idea is to free up Midoriās cards. Let him actually use his face cards without destroying his DF. In addition Midoris will still have to play for build up, it just gets a whole lot less specific on what cards he needs to draw. Opponentās will actually have to care about Midori playing attacks now. It does take away from the high risk high reward style that Midori currently has going on.
without a 2.4 speed human form poke things get even worse vs Geiger and BBB. Having even more power loaded into DF just makes attacks that beat blocks (minus Oni) all the more devastating.
Edit: BBB is actually made worse because his J now undercuts yours not because heāll be able to get to range easier. Misstated that.
Oh, I see what you have in mind. I think what you present here has some merits like making DF uncounterable. My concern is that successfully ending Dragon Form means very little for the opponent, since Midori can easily powerup for Aces ad infinitum throughout the game. Obviously not exactly the same, but imagine if Geiger had TD on Ace.
I am personally more interested in a version of Midori that feels like a grappler that can sometimes turn into an overpowered dragon grappler, more like how he plays in FSFG. I think buffing his throws to 9 damage would help create this feel, and would help his early game as well.
It had slipped my mind that hJ at 2.6 was important for the Geiger mu. I agree that it should be at 2.4, and after that change Iām pretty sure my proposed rework would perform better than V2 Midori in all of his worst matchups. Attacks that beat blocks would be just as good as they currently are, or worse since human Midori can more efficiently undercut them with Glimpseād face cards, and dragon Midori is immune to block damage.
So the changelist Iāll add to my rework idea will be:
-hJ back to 2.4 speed
-hK back to 12 dmg
-9 damage Throws
-dQ 16 damage 2 CP Ender (shifting some power off Dragon Form to compensate other buffs)
On the subject of Midori things, is there a reason why Dragon Form ends by any throw, rather than specifically combat-revealed throws? The characters I can think of that abuse the current rule all beat Midori. ie. Zane attack->throw, DeGrey/Quince dodge->throw.
Honestly, I donāt think Midori needs any particular tweaking - just keep him in mind when working on Zane, BBB and DeGrey.
Midori is fine vs Degrey. In fact his deck works better against Degrey then it does against most of the cast
Oh, thanks. Guess itās just my own DeGreyphobia shining through then.
If I recall correctly, on the old site not long before the forum switch @leontes put up some in depth analysis of Midori and his suggestions for important changes - he dubbed them āMidoriās Hopes and Dreamsā.
Iām pretty sure he said if midori was being fully reworked that he would want:
Glimpse of the dragon draws a card
Dragon form moved to ace
FDB becomes an AA+A (I donāt remember what damage he suggested, but definitely back loaded)
Dragon form fetches a single non-joker card from discard.
Itās nice that these align fairly closely with @ClanNatioyās changes suggestions. One very specific exception being @Leontes always seemed really against Midori getting a 2.2 speed dJ, but I was never sure why exactly.
My personal feeling is that if we were building Midori from scratch knowing what we know now about Yomi, his dragon form would almost certainly need to be on his ace. Compare Midori to Gloria and you can see the tight design Gloria has where her engine is built around her innate and ace so she can reliably fetch it and use it. Not ever drawing 2s as Midori is super lame and doesnāt allow him to reliably showcase his awesome dragon abilities. I love Midori, but not drawing what you need is really frustrating.
If we did this it will be *very* important to balance his dragon form moves around the reliability of entering dragon form so a few damage nerfs might also be required. Iām generally against doing that because dragon moves being super strong feels so right, but it definitely has to be on the table.
An alternative way to make his deck more reliable (and my compromise suggestion on the old forums) was:
Glimpse draws a card
Innate now allows Midori to power up for 2s
Possibly also Leontesā suggestion of Fetching one card when entering DF.
This leaves Dragon form as counterable, but fetchable. It also allows Midori to use DF as a block/throw if he needs to. I probably still prefer a rebuild to make his ace his dragon form, but this would do 99% of the work with less deck structure change.
The main problem with buffing Midoriās consistency is that his game against Gloria become even more unbalanced. Iām not generally inclined to change Gloriaās deck much at all so itās hard to see how we make that particular MU better while allowing Midori to achieve at least some of his hopes and dreams.
Its not a bad comparison as Iād say Dragon Form is up there with TD as the best ability in the game. Facing a dragon Midori with a big hand is terrifying.
Itās important to remember that R&D gives Gieger a way to reliably dig for TD by spending his Time Spirals/0.0 speed aces to defend himself. Midori *has* to block up as his only way to get dragon form and spending resources to defend himself makes it harder to justify entering dragon form.
Unless we gave him a fsfg style counter ability that lets him fetch something he needs, Iām of the opinion that he probably should be able to power up to get dragon form.
Oh and I should add that I really donāt like changing dragon form to not end when he reveals a human attack or throw. I think itās an integral part of the mind games you can play with him.
Agreedā¦ having Dragon Form not end on human attacks just feels wrong.
But again I must reiterateā¦ sure, Midori isnāt exactly top tier, but if we nerf the top tier and donāt buff his weak match-ups in particularly relevant ways, why does he actually need to be stronger? Heās inconsistent but heās quite strong, and he has his 10* to keep people on their toes in human form while heās digging for his 2s.
Iām inclined to agree at least until we nail down Geiger/Zane/BBB changes and can playtest those vs current Midori.
However using 10* at less than 9 cards always feels really bad to me. I think at minimum it needs to draw a card when activated to allow it to be used without tanking his hand as much.
I could get behind that.