Thaago: With my OniScroll against Tafari, I'm generally happy to see them use Leafy Trap, since it barely done any more total damage than Poison Dart (assuming TafPoison) and costs him a lot more energy. It's not like LT prevents me from attacking, though some people treat it like it does. Likewise, at close, I can easily choose to eat an Ambush -- Hide gives a definite chance I'll miss a Double Slash, but I still have almost 50-50 odds to hit 2 in a row, and I'll still quite possible have a chance for a 3rd. Another option is using Curse (probably at far) then bringing it close and Sword Flurrying, which will remove Hide if it's used and SF connects. Not that I'm not saying Taf sucks against tanks or something - just that they DO still have decent odds.
RamboBatman: No I'm serious, we've even specifically tested this - a good MLM wins (we even tried 2 different people - one running Insignia and one with Ring; I'm sure Tome works fine too). There's 3 important factors here: 1) Two Blood Burns will disable Deadly Poison. 2) Ambush is a 2-part move. 3) Hide costs 30 energy, not 20. Now I'm not saying MLM will usually come out of it sitting in happy land at full health and high energy or anything, but he should outlive Tafari probably 80% of the time if MLM knows what he's doing. | You trying him out reminds me of when I last used Cain, though. When he missed Rush of Bats 3 times in a row it was clear his heart wasn't in the game, so I cut him from my team. (Overall I consider MLM Tier 2 and Cain Tier 3.)
amparojack: Tanks are fine against Taf - they simply need to know how to eat an Ambush or LT. Not to say Taf isn't decent, but he's not really good against many chars directly. |||| RamboBatman: MLM actually has the advantage against Tafari 1vs1 if the person playing him knows what they're doing. Granted, Tafari still has the ability to switch out which can screw with things a bit, but if you're talking a direct cage match I'd put my money on MLM every time. In general, Tafari is a 1-move character (Poison Dart) with the strongest innate in the game and some decent defenses; he isn't really *meant* to go toe-to-toe with anybody; he's mostly meant to trap them and finish them off. (Rumiko is about the only person he actually has an advantage against directly.) | Alblaka: Popo's Herbal is 100% proc -- if the attack itself hits, and is not absorbed. So if you PD CC it'll probably be absorbed; the attack's proc can happen on absorb, but not buffs/items/innates.
wring: lol whut? Cain gets a lot worse when you play against people that have a clue what they're doing; it's usually pretty dang easy to avoid putting him into powerzone, at which point he is left only dealing modest damage at mediocre speeds and high miss rates :P Also, in addition to be awful against CC he's even worse against MLM.
ivanaj36: I'll let you in on a little secret: Cain is actually pretty awful. Rush of Bats is by no means overpowered; it's slow and has a high miss rate, and it's easy enough to keep Cain out of his Powerzone to prevent it from being uber.
Ashi is a good char as it stands and is in the same boat as Rumi; if we drop CC's HS speed by 1 she gets a decent indirect buff. Only plan I had was to drop AH en cost 40 -> 35. | Helene is obviously a mess; I like an all-over approach. Drop SB's en cost to 40, raise SS hit & proc, make EB last 3 turns, raise FS to speed 8. Possibly even also increase FS hit rate or drop en cost to 35, but that might be too much. | Switching VSs is good, though Cain still needs something beyond that; I am still not satisfied with my planned changes for him yet, though. As mentioned previously, dropping CC's HS speed by 1 also seems good. | MLM is underrated; he's just hard to use. More life is out of the question. Dropping Tomes to +9/+9 is a starts, making it harder for VV to OHKO. Beyond that all I'd do is increase Tele and BB procs (97 & 100), and give Tele +1 damage (actually significant). | VV - not a bad idea there; she doesn't need any big nerf, and I haven't liked my other ideas much.
Rambo: For Amaya I'd fix his innate bug and make SC hit fleeing. | Rumi is fine; she's solid all-around without being overpowered or underpowered really - though making PD useful would be nice. | Oni's AS could definitely use a buff, lasting 1 more turn and being 95% would be good. Also Crane should affect both these moves, but otherwise I'd leave AC at 90%. | For Andromeda, making RoA 95/95 was in my earlier drafts, but it's probably too good like that - it's a hits fleeing move that can deal 40 damage after all. Instead I'm more looking at making Crip. Shot better alongside a +1 speed boost for TS and RoA. (And she gets indirectly better if Anex gets worse and tanks get better.) | Anex's CS should stay at 2 turns - 2 turns lets it combo into other characters. The main thing she needs is a Valk Charm nerf; dropping that to +1 speed is pretty significant while still being a useful item. Fixing BC proc is good, and then we can also drop PT damage by 1 so it doesn't 1-hit Amaya.
Alblaka: Nobody in this game is broken - but that doesn't mean characters aren't good or bad. Helene is borderline useless for example, and JujuFeather is right up there with ValkAnex in terms of being very versatile and a bit overpowered. JujuFeather basically has no bad matchups; Amaya is probably the best bet against him, but he can still CoJJ 3-4 times for the kill. He has an advantage against the others you listed like Popo (Feather wrecks SS's hit chance, his innate screws with PD) and Rumi (fairly close, but in Juju's favor, especially with the auxiliary stuff like Hex being cheaper than SB). And Helene... how does she actually deal damage to him? It's not like SB is a good move, and he has a moderate chance to feather-dodge it anyway :P Overall Juju is tough, has a way to heal, generally has a move available for all situations, and has very few weaknesses.
ddent123 - MLM vs ValkAnex largely depends on starting range. Starting at far, ValkAnex can BC+Get Far+BC+CS for the kill without taking more than a little chip damage. Starting at close it's more even, but probably still in ValkAnex's favor.
WamboOSX - Quickening Powder is the worst card in the game and should never be used unless there is no other reasonable alternative available. A speed boost isn't very useful when you don't know if you'll have a boost until after you use the attack!
goodby1 - Starters are functionally the same as other cards. |||| chocolaterules - Helene doesn't need to gain Popohax, there are better ways to fix her. |||| karthik_king - Not much has changed AFAIK, except maybe the meta being more ValkAnex heavy and everyone realizing Helene sucks :P |||| wringsteak - Hyp Stare will 'miss' based on the attack it is copying; e.g. if you reflect a Pilebunker, there's a 10% chance it'll miss. |||| wringsteak - Might as well earn QP, theoretically it might get fixed some day ;O But it is funny that they followed up Helene with one of the very very few cards that are even worse than her! |||| Spudder19 - Almost every game I've played has been at least 10 minutes. The timer settings are about right, but I wouldn't be wholly opposed to an auto-forfeit if someone times out on several range changes AND move selections in a row.
Dick - If you really wanted to do the math, you'd see that Phoebe needs to either crit or stun (and not miss PL) to win against Anex at far, for a net of 30.6% =) Of course, you could also complicate matters by looking at the chances both miss, etc. but that's pretty rare. Simple enough to say Phoebe wins about 1 in 3 though, I guess :/. |||| ddent123 - Rumiko is basically perfect - she is strong without being overpowered. 70% Evis is not 100%, and 50% chance to dodge intercepts is not 100% either. The numbers are correct. She completely sucks against tanks (especially Oni), and generally only matches are even does slightly worse against people like VV, Yoshi, etc. |||| Kenji135 - If your opponent's Yoshiro tried to intercept your Onimaru, there probably wasn't much *thinking* involved in the first place ;P
The mechanics are the same, but good players using ValkAnex are a lot more threatening than crap players using her, same with JujuFeather - and better players mostly play ranked. (Partially true with any char, of course, but some don't shine at all with bad players.) |||| I didn't have a chance to play back in the day, but best I can tell ValkAnex was never bad and Helene was never good - players were just dumb and didn't know how to range dance. Helene is not bad because of a slowed FS & SB; she would still be bottom tier if she reverted to her old self. Likewise, ValkAnex with a 90% BC is still top tier. |||| Re: the meta, you don't need to run Ubie/ValkAnex/CC to do well in ranked, but you should be at least aware of the meta. You can actually run someone like MLM and still do well in ranked, but I don't think the same is true of Helene (and probably Andro/Phoebe either with ValkAnex popularity). I think random in ranked gives you better odds than running Helene on purpose.
RamboBatman - Having lots of bad options isn't better than having 1 good option in most cases, so having a lot of options doesn't make Helene good when all of her options are usually subpar. People also like to say how she is cool because she can deal all 3 types of damage, but that is really not a significant advantage at all. |||| As for ValkAnex, Matching speed 7 absolutely should not be ignored - 37 (in powerzone) or even just 25 damage that you wouldn't get in otherwise, nearly every single game? That's better than other items (even after accounting for resistances, dropping damage to 34.3/22.3) which only average 10-20 extra damage per game, and it is highly relevant for all of her moves - not just BC. Throw in an enchant too and you're talking 30.6/46.6 from another BC hit.
RamboBatman - You're missing a drastically important part in the mirror - non-ValkAnex won't even have a chance to use PT at all if ValkAnex procs her PT, which is usually the case (88%). Also, you are drastically underestimating the power of a speed 7, 100%/100% hits fleeing move that can be at 37 damage in powerzone. Anex's innate is significantly better than Cain's even though they're identical, and Valk is the primary reason. Admittedly, part of the reason non-ValkAnex is bad is because there are so many ValkAnexes out there to begin with, but in general Valk is VERY powerful. CandleAnex has decent odds against her in mirror, though is probably still worse overall; haven't seen enough Candle users to really say for sure there. Side note - play ranked more, it's a lot different than unranked. See if you still think ValkAnex sucks when you get in the SR30 range. It's not broken or even required for a good deck, but it's clearly a bit overpowered.
Haffacracka - Actually Taf vs Oni is pretty close, and I'd usually give the advantage to Oni, though he does have more variance there. You simply have to realize that it's okay to eat an Ambush or Leafy Trap and you're already doing well. |||| Ice_Burner - You are simply wrong, CC has the definite advantage against Oni. There's enough of a guessing game that sometimes Oni can pull off a sneaky DS, but in general Oni cries and wants to get out of there if possible.
RamboBatman - Average energy cost of moves is pretty irrelevant; you're counting Axe Handle and Enchant Blade in there :P Mostly what one should be looking at is Bleeding Slice and Frenzied Strikes, the primary means of dealing damage, and Ashi definitely has the advantage there. 30 energy is a *lot* less than 40, especially for a monoranger; Helene can be range-danced out of FS much easier than Ashi's BS. While I agree Axe Handle is clearly one of the worst moves in the game, Helene is full of crappy moves, and she lacks something solid like Bleeding Slice to make up for it. For comparison, FS averages a pathetic 22.5 damage unenchanted and only jumps to 36.9 damage enchanted, while BS averages 40.2 damage total -- for less energy and less variance! Obviously there's a lot more to it than that, but the comparison is still noteworthy. (Slash averages 25.0). Personally I prefer Oni for my tanking needs anyway, but any decent player will choose Ashi over Helene and for good reason.
RamboBatman & Andrehydra - Helene is *not* good. Yes, she IS good against VV and Yoshi, but even then it's a dance because she has no energy game and such a high miss rate. She's also worse vs those 2 after she enchants. Overall she is strictly the worse character in the game, there really isn't room for debate; it's not the same as the awfulness of others like Andro, Phoebe, etc. where they have some redeeming features. |||| SB is not very useful - only any good against idiots that don't know how to range dance or other tanks. FS does abysmal damage for energy cost on a mono-ranger. Enchant is poor since it only lasts 2 turns which is easy to range dance or switch out of. SS is useful, though it still has a high miss rate and an unreliable proc. |||| sylvr2 - I only know one top player running Helene, and he's not really top - he was SR29 last I saw :P Random All is probably better than running Helene on purpose...
supergiantsfan - You get a lot fewer disconnecting opponents if you make it to a decent skill rank. |||| adverto - You claim it's not balanced and then you complain about Higashi, an average character and Amaya, a worse-than-average character? Nicely done :P Kongai has some balance issues, but is not bad overall. |||| Doc_Kelso - Yoshi really isn't that bad. Hell, he's even weak against the worst character in the game ;) In general he can be nasty especially if he pulls off Yoshihax, but he's also fairly fragile; he can be taken down easily enough by several people. He's strong and top-tier, no arguments there -- I just wouldn't call him overpowered. He's nothing like ValkAnex, JujuFeather, or even CC. |||| ddent123 - Oni actually has a decent matchup against Taf, and I might even rate it in Oni's favor (especially if it's a cage match).
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