How to NOT Buff a Character 

Props to the editor. Really nice work.

two small corrections, his S normals (except cS) have always done chip damage. the only change has been to frame data. similarly, clone has always been a "delete projectiles" move, but now it travels faster and full screen

"They want characters to use every single move they have" ***Jack-O' Countdown exists***

I think ArcSys's strategy with this is pretty unsustainable. Characters should have identifiable weaknesses. But the strategy of "get the players to use the rest of the character's toolkit" can make some characters weaknesses harder to pinpoint, especially if they continue doing it through just buffs. Now, admittedly, if a character's only weakness is that they have a few bad moves you wouldn't use, that's not much of a weakness to begin with.

Jack-O 2S is the most meme ass, borderline-zero-application move but there aren't enough people playing her for anyone to care

And on this blessed day, our Lord has giveth us yet another feast so we may live to one day see the promised land (AKA winter patch notes). Let us pray...

I think this philosophy is also seen with characters like Axl, who were never really great, but they had one or two tools that made them able to function (axl bomber). the recent patch nerfed bomber loops hard, and buffed some of his lesser used combo tools to compensate (rainwater, winter mantis). however, those moves can't be looped and don't do nearly the damage of bomber, so while Axl now appears to be more versatile, he is actually even more neutered than before, being almost entirely unable to deal meaningful damage when compared to the rest of the cast. some moves need to be niche. some moves need to be strong. if you give every character multiple mediocre options instead of one strong one for a situation, gameplay will start to feel less satisfying as memorization, reads and application kind of take a backseat.

In addition to the fact that they want every character to use every move, I think its also important to mention power budgeting. The biggest example that I can think of is how Anji got fujin nerfed in the most recent patch. Fujin was a very powerful move on an otherwise weak character; making anji strictly stronger makes that a very powerful move on a very powerful character. In order to open up design space for Anji's other tools to be viable, fujin HAD to be nerfed. Anji players didn't like this, however, because from their perspective, their bottom tier character got nerfed, and to some, the most fun part of that character was what got nerfed. Overall, I would say that Anji is in a better place than he was before as a character, and also Anji's design space is now opened up to further buffs in the future. This is where I think arcsys fails with the nago changes, for example. When they buffed some of his tools because players weren't using them enough, they failed to adequately adjust his power budget, and instead just loaded him with more things that he can do.

Really great video! Also, fantastic editing. I've honestly been pretty happy with their approach to character balance so far- and it *really* has come a long way since some of their older games. I like the approach of making all the character's tools useful, and I feel like at least for regular play (i.e non-tournament) everyone feels great- even those at the bottom. Though I feel most of the changes and buffs and nerfs have been really good for the game, I'm curious what changes will come for a character like Happy Chaos- who I worry as time goes on, runs the risk of crossing the line into being a character a growing number of folks would want to see "punished and banished to the dumpster forever." Which would be bad- you still want people to play the characters. Feels like it's just starting to get a little vicious and toxic. I'm not sure what they'll do, but without even mentioning his moves, he seems to be in a class of his own with his use of the universal wall mechanics.

Even as a all player, I actually am overall a fan of how they balanced him. They not only buffed some of his weaker options, but actually nerfed his stronger tools to make you have to think more, and use the right tool for the right situation. I don’t have a problem with them buffing an unused move on a top tier, I just think that they should then nerf the strong tools, so that people are actually forced to use the fool kit, without just buffing top tiers

sfv nash was punished for 5 seasons because people mistakenly thought he was good in season 1

Yo the editing on this is killer wtf

Great vid. I'm also not a fan of the "only buff, never nerf" sentiment. Eventually it will change the game on a fundamental level and you may not like what it changes into

This is an amazing video LK and the editing is godlike rip my first ever fighting game character Noel

Bro I just want sol to be able to play basketball with bandit bringer again

Super high quality video, love this editing style

Rly loved the editing on this vid. Would love to see more stuff with this kind of editing style.

Thanks for mentioning Makoto. We need buffs for best girl.

Your editing game has really picked up since the last time I really checked out your channel. Love to see it brother

Excellent, deep, yet concise video. I don't know if I believe that the broader online conversation around fighting games, but videos like these make me hope.

It's funny you mentioned Valkenhayn granted I watched Jiyuna commentate a tourney recently where someone won against Monarch with them. If that characters ankles were broken and Rachel's I do not want to know how good they were before that lmao. Aside from that I feel Strive is one of the better balanced fighting games out there. However the fact they buffed happy chaos despite him being so oppressive makes me wonder if buffing and nerfing every character regardless of level is problematic for the future. Great video man!

Buffing a character's weaker moves is usually a good way to buff weaker characters, because in the modern age of fighting games most characters will have some number of good moves while the bad characters are bad because they have fewer good moves. Buffing the weaker moves of these characters helps make these characters more well-rounded, whereas buffing their strong moves only makes them more reliant on a handful of moves. Buffing an already strong character isn't a great idea though. I remember a time in League of Legends where Riot tried to nerf Lucian in some areas (I believe damage with one or more of his abilities) but also buffed his mobility as "compensation" for what they believed to be big damage nerfs. However, the buffs were much more impactful than the nerfs, and he ended up being completely broken after the patch. Compensation for a strong character getting nerfed can produce a huge problem, and I think it's a better idea to allow a character to settle after a patch where they get nerfed so see if they even need to buff them back up. In particular, a strong character might avoid using a particular move because it's a decent tool on a character where everything is good, and if the character's strong tools get nerfed then they might start using their decent tools instead. I don't like the idea of breaking a character's ankles, but there's a sound game design idea that explains why it happens. The idea is "double and half", where when you're looking to make changes to a game, instead of changing values in small ways, make large changes to see a noticeable shift in gameplay. It's entirely possible that dramatic changes in character strength from game to game (or patch to patch) is a direct result of the developers using this double and half methodology to buff and nerf characters. However, the reason this principle is effective is because the designer can then take that data to determine to reign in the values that would make the game better as a whole, and it's possible that designers that use this idea to balance characters either don't bother doing a playtest to check the character after breaking their ankles, do a playtest that provides different data from what the players provide, and/or don't have enough time before the release of the new version to playtest the new version to make sure it's still fair.

When i think of a badly buffed character, Captain Falcon from Smash Ultimate immediately comes to my mind: At launch he was considerend to have a strong moveset, but he was being held back by some unique properties of his run startup that gave him some of the clunkiest movement among all charactes. Even when he was fast, his neutral was extremely commital in a VERY safe game. By now he's clearly the most buffed character in the game, but that property i talked about is exactly the same. Rather, they decided to increase his raw kill power to outrageous levels. And so he is now considered a "robbery" character

As someone who came from the smash scene, it's wild reading the patch notes for strive

1:50 Yeah, this is why I was never really into the Marvel vs. Capcom games. I wanted to pick the characters I thought were cool (When I was just playing casually at my friend's house, I liked Cap, Hulk, and She-Hulk), but it always seemed like there was a small top tier and a lot of characters nobody used.

Really good work on the editing . Keep it up like this .

I love how you said "the modern fighting game era" with heavy air quotes as if it's a complex or controversial thing to say in general

Games should be made with a clear vision in mind. I'll be honest the approach of always buff and never nerf is a pretty annoying one when it annoys the fact that power creep does in fact exist. Yes characters that are terrible should be buffed. But Nerfs should be more of a thing than buffs imo I invite fighting game players to play card games and still tell me that buffing is always better than nerfing.

I just miss doing stupid stuff with Sol's dragon install.

Honestly, even as a Nagoriyuki main it feels like they've committed too hard to this "Oh ho he has to watch his blood or else he'll explode!" design and attempts to balance it out - fSSS giving way more blood so you basically never are stuck in Lvl 2 b/c Lvl is so restrictive, now they've buffed Lvl 2 sword normals to be really good, etc. - just make it worse/funnier. I mean, I'll take the weird buffs but at times I wish they had tried something else with him.

I think nago is particularly strong because unlike a lot of characters in the game, his "Gimmick" isn't interactive. Stain and shock state, minions and Eddie all can be removed on hit. Blood rage isn't really interactive. While you have to try to get nago to use the move wrongly, him using it correctly has such a huge payoff that the risk reward is heavily skewed. I wish there was a way to punish nago for being at high blood that didn't rely on nago making a mistake with his resource management.

My person issue with this specific way of balancing is that it takes away weaknesses in a strong character's kit

Nice editing. I'm loving the cute drawings.

AMAZING editing. Damn!

Video editor been watchin Sakurai's channel eh

From the sounds of it, balancing a game based around move usage seems really bizarre. The fact that not every character uses their moves equally is inherent to fighting games. Trying to buff the weaker characters is something they should do now, and if they feel the top tiers are too overpowered, make small nerfs that will matter. Would be funny to see Tekken 8 trying to balance their game around that philosophy though.

I just wish theyd make Chipp shuriken usable

+1 loved the editing on this.

A big thing that people don't talk about in regards to the top tiers in this game, is that the magnitudes of the mental stack components are highly favorable to Resource Management characters like Nago, Chaos, and Zato. Trying to make decisions based on Resource Management goes both ways in the character/player matchup, and swings more favorably to the player playing the character due to many reasons, but, most emphatically, IMO, due to the higher muscle memory associated with the player in the matchup that actually plays the character. This of course has been a thing in the Guilty Gear franchise for a long time, but the unique thing about Strive, is that fS can kill you in this game. I think this is the biggest reason why this characters are so strong.

I’m never going to understand how Arcsys thinks that a full screen projectile with max priority that when connects can be teleported to and can start combos is a good idea.

top notch editing

"this is not the way to buff top tiers" Is there a correct way to buff top tiers without first nerfing them?

The changes from the giant patch a while back felt so drastic, it took a long time for me to make sense of it all. In the end though, I love them: the switch from massive damage to more mixups meant top tiers didn't have to necessarily stop being good but they had to turn on their brain, and then basically all the low tiers were buffed enough to make them totally viable, even aggressive, like with Goldlewis. The state of the game right now feels pretty fair

Yo whoever this editor is. Pay them more EZ More funny edits with LK voice

If Arcsys wanted characters to use all moves, they would have buffed beach ball. It's useless. Please buff May's beach ball Daisuke!

Oh, Noel is the Blanka of BB. He was strong once and they never let that happen again lol

At high lvl popping bloodrage is always punished

Now that you play baiken, what do you feel on the anji MU? I feel like it's really hard to deal with him and you can't really use baiken's pokes to any degree of success because if he spins you lose 60% hp

Thanx my man keep it up

I just wanna know why they are gonna buff them again next patch, cuz they will buff them all again right? While also giving minor buffs to most of the cast and everyone wondering post patch what will change (nothing will change again)...except for some major nerfs to Ino again cuz that's an evergreen right?

It's a shame that characters like Sol and Gio haven't received the same level of combo fluidity as others have; they've been more restricted if anything in comparison. It's silly that Sol's best midscreen BnB is to just route into Clean Hit DP, especially when you compare what he could get in previous games. Hopefully as the game progresses, they add new routes and moves to level the playing field with Ram, Nago, Chaos, etc.

Great video as always!

Remember when leo got buffed so his run through an cross at the wall now...why

I like when low effort top tiers get nerfed into the ground. They've been getting free wins for a year. Why can't they get some free losses too?

Oh yeah my main's in the thumbnail lesgo

As an Axl player (when I still played strive) when they buffed the Nago clone alongside the Axl nerfs it made a match up that was fun to miserable. The task of keeping Nago out became close to impossible and as soon as he got in it was GG.

LordKnight posts a new video and all is right with the world

Great video !

Beyblade being minus 3 on block makes it punishable by every character in the cast with throw. He's wrong when he says only like 2 characters can punish it. Similarly someone else mentioned already that clone has always destroyed projectiles and he didn't notice that chip already worked on his normals like that. Also important note not discussed, the improvements to FD are a nerf to Nago. Using FD will disrupt almost all his tickthrow setups. Meaning that FD can eliminate his mix so that if Nago is overextended with blood use and you use FD during a blockstring, it will deny him opportunities to get in a command grab. This can force a blood rage or just prevent him from resetting his pressure.

Release Nago's DP was so useless lol

Arcsys was like, damn I-no using H-stroke, we should make it literally worse. Oh but people don’t use 2S, we should buff it. Aye arcsys why not both? I’m confused why other characters get to approach and be plus in my face (Jack-O, HC, Goldlewis, Zato), but I can’t be +2 and frame trap with 2K just to get knockdown and go into my game plan. Thanks

3:01 *cries in shuriken

Wayt, you use the same sprite of Shogo from Kyoto?

I don't use Baiken's fS enough, please make it 7 frames

the perspective that arcays wants all their characters move to get used makes a lot of their design decisions make more sense (even if i still dont agree with said decisions lol)

Oh is that melty blood music I hear?

i think that buffing moves so thay people use them more is good. however, of the character is already strong, then they need to be nerfed in a different area in order to compensate

I still think Nago is actually really well designed, but he’s one of the only characters really balanced for strive. The others, they’re not bad by any means and are all viable to some extent, as we see in the tournaments (even if recently many winners have been HC). This is more of a sign that everyone else needs to catch up either in a similar fashion or their own way that makes them just as deadly.

It's definitely been a weird approach to watch unfold; though its probably a simpler philosophy than trying to sort through all the different regions/languages & opinions, and Then coming up with the Correct response.

I've seen Hotashi being reffered to indirectly in 3 different videos where the subject matter was all the same: Nago is a problem lmao

Perfect breakdown bro...and we agree...STOP buffing Nago...please

Its moreso dependant on the game's pace, rather than buffing the char to keep up with the rest of the roster. In MK9's case, if a char needs a buff I'd say its most important NOT to compare the significance of the buff to any other character's ability because of the game's pace. This a high attack power, high momentum, fast-paced game so its safe to say that said char will need a big buff based off what he/she is terrible or lacking in, not based off of what the other chars have. Basically, don't buff a character based off of another character's strengths or flaws. You knocking it out the park with these discussions, LK.

Its crazy how some characters get punished for being top tier but others dont cough cough Elphelt

Someday, heavy mob cemetery will be good 😮‍💨

I don't mind if some characters are strong, so long as no character is particularly weak.

Potemkin is #1 in terms of showing how overly nerfing a character just ruins the experience and fun you can have with a character went from top tier fun/hype and a actual threat again after a decade in the beta to bottom tier trash that feels super limited and meter dependent to do anything fun and almost all "optimal damage" linked behind needlessly precise kara inputs that only a select few players can execute consistently. But worst of all when the major system changes happened for Season 2 Potemkin literally was singled out from the rest of the roster with almost nothing gained from it whatsoever and felt 100% targeted without any reason as to why. Screw arc systems for that i mean if they called the update the fk you Potemkin mains update it's honestly not a stretch from the reality of what happened.

Goldlewis says hi

I see u LK with the production buff.

I ended up not liking arcys games following dbzf. Ever since LK first talked about how dbzf balances were centered around making players and characters "feel" like they can do something, i ended up hating it. Always feels like running up a mountain when i put ppl in the corner. High defense mechanics just allows for mindless, easy escapes. My scrub take is tht finesse, reliant characters struggle more than characters tht hve very strong defensive tools (gogeta red/blue, ui, etc).

I think the problem with all top tiers is that usually it comes down to consistency. Games need more reasons through mechanics and interactions to reward risk-taking and prohibit boring, consistent tools from becoming the dominant strategy. I would do things like giving Nagoriyuki's blood mechanic a way of being filled up by the enemy attacking him (not a lot though, so not a big risk when his blood is low) as well as giving Nago access to his specials while in BR, like his boss version, at the cost of them prolonging the state and draining more HP from him. Make him more volatile and make people have to work more to keep him consistent. I would rework Ramlethal's sword specials because they give all her other tools way too much power. Plus, the way they work makes no sense and makes her gameplay kinda boring tbh. Leo, I dunno, he's kinda all-around powerful so targeting just his Flash Kick wouldn't do much.

As a Nago enjoyer, I feel like his buffs are enjoyable to have.

Algorithm comment

I got click baited when I saw something about not buffing Nago, but then you called us H-Bots and I was like 🤔 ......he is spitting facts

Nah, Rachel players shouldn't be allowed to have fun tbh

Didn't Sonicfox randomly out of the blue pick up beerus and say he was top tier when he was still considered bottom tier by everyone else. I think they ended up putting him in mid tier, but it's still weird how common beerus is used as the low tier arcsys example. Why not use Krillin instead who's an infinitely better example since he got nerfed in the first big patch.

I do not. for a second, believe that they truly want every character to use every move. have you not seen what they did to Giovannas 214S? We have only 2 overheads and have to resort to gimmicky pseudo fuzzies to open someone up because they are both atrocious bad and easy to react 5p them. If they want me to use every move, they're just going to need to straight up replace 214S with anything else, like a real oki option

Daisuke wants the game to be beautiful, it s not only about characters winning or losing

I dont mind top tier buffs but arcsys needs to do maybe a smidge bit stronger nerfs

I have to say that although it may not be more balanced way I still like the way arcsys balanced nago. I didn't use the clone but when they nerfed beyblade and buff the clone I use it more often, I don't know about balance but using all the moves and having option is mor fun, at least for me

Beachball buffs plz arcsys

I still stand by that every nago buff except the latest S button depending on blood level were needed and good changes. Nago having no bad moves isn't a sign of Nago being busted, but everyone else needing to catch up in having all moves be valid and useful.

You didn't really touch on sols br oki. that's a big hit as well. not getting meaty fafnir/ meaty c.s

They broke ssj legs, they took away some of Sols combos and then the people who were complaining about sol still gets their ass washed, water no soap then complain about the other characters that got buffed that they don't know how to deal with

The devs need to look at tekken 7 for balance

Buff Nago...but seriously all of the fun things in most fighting games are clearly unfair and to counter that...give one a broken move..problem fix so no one can really complain which really means that the game will be balanced technically due to everyone being...broken

I like the buff patches in Strive so far.

FD doesn't cause extra stun!? I haven't played Strive so I don't know the full picture but that seems very uncharacteristic for Guilty Gear!

How not to buff..... Anji

Tekken 8!

Spitting facts