If Zane isn’t the best character in the game, then he’s definitely the most meta-defining. He kerbstomps a huge number of the cast with explosive (if sometimes erratic) combo damage off of 1.0 speed attacks and dominant throws (outside grapplers/supers), a reversal that beats every other reversal, and probably the most hated super in Yomi.
Appropriately enough, Zane also seems to be nearly the divisive character when it comes to discussing balance changes. At present there are two main schools of thought, the first is that the only thing wrong with Zane is Maximum Anarchy (which should be removed and/or replaced with something less game warping), the second is that moderate nerfs to all parts of his gameplan are required, with Anarchy getting at minimum a speed nerf to 0.3.
Consensus Changes
The only change that has been met with long term consistent agreement is that Shenanigans should trigger before the opponent plays a facedown. As things stand, sometimes Zane getting bad nans is actually worse for his opponent.
The change listed here for Crash Bomb is an attempt to make it slightly less good by letting knockdowns beat it. This was suggested recently, but has received no negative feedback thus far. It helps who all currently struggle vs Zane, so it would seem to be a well targeted good suggestion.
Shenanigans Immediately after you win combat, if you could play a combo card, reveal two cards from the top of your deck and use up to one of them in your combo. Discard the unused card(s).
K* Crash Bomb [During Combat]
This attack can’t be interrupted except by attacks that knock down. (If it’s hit by a faster non-knockdown attack, the opponent can’t combo. This hits afterwards and wins combat.)
If this is blocked, you take 5 damage and are knocked down.
Changes Under Consideration
Meaty Attacks
While the opponent is knocked down, your normal attacks are speed 1.0 and do not draw a card if they are blocked or win combat.
AAAA Maximum Anarchy —> AA Maximum Anarchy
0.0 speed, 50(5) damage —> 1.0 speed, 15(2) damage
A* Maximum Anarchy [During Combat]
If you won combat and Maximum Anarchy dealt damage, all players remake their hands (Each player reveals their hand, shuffles it, puts it on the bottom of their deck, then draws that many cards).
I’ve just discovered there is a site wide edit limit so I can’t make any more progress today
I’ll add more of the discussed changes from the wishlist to this thread when I’m allowed to lol. Others can also give it a go if they feel up to it, that is the power of wiki posts after all.
I’ve changed the formatting slightly so that speed, damage or CP/type changes are recorded with original —> new for ease of reference.
I’ve also tried to underline ability text that has been changed. This is hard where text has been simply removed or major rework has happened. Where possible I’ve tried to indicate where changes to use occurred.
I’ve edited all the cases I saw where something had been deleted and showed that change with struck-out text. Also changed some wording on characters where I was already making changes to bring it more in line with official wording.
Finally, I tried adjusting the formatting of Zane’s post in an attempt to improve readability, mainly by un-bolding the card rank next to each move or ability’s name and re-positioning the ability timing tags to be next to the ability names. I can go ahead and apply that to all of them if you like it, or I can revert one or both parts of that if you don’t.
Nicely edited! I really appreciate someone else taking a look at how to make it more readable.
I think I like you’re way better. It’s definitely easier to separate rank and name, but I slightly dislike having the rank not bold, as it makes it stand out less. Not sure how to differentiate both in a clear way tbh. Also not sure how to best apply it to Oni’s 6-attack —> 6-throw.
Yeah, I feel you on wanting the rank bold, but I can’t think of a better way to make the rank and name visually distinct either. I’ll take a look at Oni when I get to him.
Edit: @thehug0naut, where did the name “Spinal Toss” come from? I can’t picture in my head what that move would look like from the name, and all that’s coming to mind is that thing in one of the Metal Gear games (not sure which, I haven’t played any of them) where you can rip someone’s spine out as a finisher… Obviously not what was intended. I was thinking that a name inspired by judo would make sense because Onimaru is clearly not Japanese or anything (though because there isn’t a Japan in the FS universe I think using a literal judo move’s name might be worse than translating the same name into English).
Edit 2: Added a character index to the first post. Probably overkill, but if/when we start adding new characters from Codex it’ll be helpful to find their posts since they’ll almost certainly be buried in the middle of the topic. Even before then, now all someone has to do to find a specific character is jump to the first post, open the index, then click the link (3 clicks) instead of scrolling awkwardly and possibly having to wait for sections to load every so often.
I think it was from one of the old forum discussions about v3 changes, possibly suggested as a name for an Oni 9 throw with knockdown. One of those “I’ll keep a note of that” moments. I’m not precious about it or anything, so feel free suggest something different.
Edit: thing that didnt work
Character index looks great man! Though I wasn’t keen on it reloading when I click on it. Turns out #TheresAHackForThat! If we make each character heading like this: <h1 id='heading--grave'>Grave</h1>
Then add this to the link: #heading--grave
Then it will jump to the place rather than reloading! I’ve set Grave to work like this for now for testing purposes.
Edit edit: I got it working for most of the cast, but it seemed to stop working for Gwen / Ven / Zane a bunch so I went back to the standard way of linking.
I adjusted the order because Jokers are always put at the end of any lists of ranks or combat options on the official cards.
Also, I had an idea about how to adjust the formatting so that the ranks can be bold. Here’s a mockup, let me know what you think:
Mockup
7*Bag of Tricks [End of Turn]
If this is your only card in hand, put up to three non-7, non-Joker cards from your discard pile on top of your deck in any order, then discard this card.
AASurprise Gift [During Combat]
17(3) damage —> 15(2) damage
Honestly, I think I prefer the current style over this one, but since it’s the first alternative format I’ve thought of that I didn’t immediately reject I decided you might want to see it and decide for yourself.
In light of multiple people agreeing that we need to test the consensus changes before doing any more theorizing, I thought it would be a good idea to have a way for players to see who’s willing to test each character, both to make scheduling tests for specific matchups easier and to see if a character doesn’t have any testers yet.
Which characters can you play as for testing?
You can vote for as many as you want, and you can change your votes at any time!
We’ll also need to figure out how to play without rules enforcement, since I’m guessing a lot of the players who played back in the days before rules enforcement was added have drifted away from the community and been replaced with new players who have only ever played with it on.
I consider myself competent in all characters and I most certainly will play most if given a chance. However, I am very lacking in raw experience and MU knowledge outside of my favourite characters so I voted very conservativly.
Fight me, and I’ll add your corpse to my newest art installation titled “50 shades of submission”
Thread necromancy question: Which character and/or matchup do you think is the most important to test in order to say that the proposed changes are heading in the right direction?
who all currently struggle vs Zane, so it would seem to be a well targeted good suggestion.
