Probably makes her a top 5 kameo. All 3 of her moves are viable. Can't think of another base roster kameo that has 3 viable moves. Maybe Scorpion but his overhead is trash compared to Sonyas now and his "get over here" move is very situational.
I don’t know if the Nitara change makes her better, but it definitely makes her easier to play. It’s one of those strings where you have a billion years to hit confirm. So if you’re not good at hit conforming, I think it’ll help you out a lot. It might also make her better with certain Kameos, but I’ll wait for smarter people to figure that out and steal their combos.
Haviks buff was pretty meh but since i main him i think this was what they were going for: - Stand 4 buff is for frame traps. i think it used to be plus 1 or 2 but after your opponent blocks stand 4 you can now backdash sweep or back 2 or trade for a punish, kameo conversion, or to reset neutral. Kinda like his Stand 21 (even though it’s better lol) - Stand 3 buff is really only helpful with corner combos. After launching with heart in the corner, stand 3 into another heart is optimal but it can be a tricky link. A faster stand 3 just makes this easier i believe, no other reason. - F13 is easily his best buff. it used to be somewhere from -15 to -21 on block (but with pushback) so it was pretty useless and only used for a mixup with his F122. You could combo after F13 with a kameo pre-patch but it was another tricky link and almost not worth it. Now, F13 is much easier to convert into kameo and is only -6 on block i believe.
That kitana move has been used against my rain when I zone them too much, they side switch (usually get punished for it) or catch me in the air tryna raingodball
Going back to the classic Quan an Sonya combo ASAP, as much as I love Quan/Janet, Sonya was so fun, and now that she has mixup potential, oooooooh man.
Kitana's standing 1,1 string doesn't go into her launcher... So you have to do 1,1, enhanced square wave into her launcher it you don't have the right kameo. That's really the main instance that you would use this move where substantial scaling happens. I mean it can be used to other things obviously but I think this was the main purpose of the buff.
I’m by no means the most optimal Kitana player, but Square Wave is great for Mavado ambushes. It also gives her a good combo starter off of 11, since only her S1 cancels into Fan Lift in the midscreen. This way you can do 11 into Square Wave into an ambush and it won’t scale as bad.
I suppose I could see Sonya fitting into what Scorpion was already offering, safe overhead launch, juggle extensions, just with a projectile instead of the armoured evade. The launch is still a little weird to combo with some characters though. Nitara change can't be about punishes, because she already has a 7 frame punish with 1212, I think it's probably more a safe hit-confirm option. Stryker, dunno, I guess at full screen the kuffed move can be a bit more useful but if you wanted plus frames up close the overhead baton was already +6. I'm pretty sure Sub mains would like the f1 sped up more than the other changes, but maybe I'm clueless since I'm not a Sub main. Absolutely give Li Mei another try, even if it's just to see if she can zone now, maybe with Sonya? Rings to cover getting the lantern on screen.
With strikers specifically, you can do kuffed in more combos for a reset. Before if you did it in combos while your opponent was airborne it normally whiff. Now character like reptile and Baraka with launchers that launch you high enough, you can combo in to kuffed for a restand
Sonya's grab now being a safe overhead was a blessing to me as an Omni-Main, as well as an Ashrah secondary. With Omni-Man, he now has what he's been lacking the entire time, an overhead combo starter, and it's safe so I don't even have to hit confirm anymore. I can finally open people up, and for Ashrah, her 22 into leg grab is now high low overhead in one combo. How do you block that? I don't even know. Can you? You've got to be able to but who can react to that? The person I tried it online on certainly couldn't. And it's a fast recharge too, it's really quick.
Kitana can combo from her 112 now without having to use specific kameos. 112 doesn’t combo into fan lift so now she’ll have a fast combo punish off 112 into EX square wave which can be cancelled into other specials : ie fan lift 🤓🤓 Should open up more punishes
Havik’s standing 3 is a good poke/ whiff punish tool. Additionally, you can use it to poke low blocking opponents to place yourself in prime positioning. But the thing is, chaos kick should be his mid. The fact that it’s a high makes it useless because haviks issue is that he gets low-poked all the time. His mid is 18 frames on start up. Havik is missing a lot of ways of opening up his opponent and real combo potential. Even with movado his actual combos are very straight forward. He has a good corner set up but he doesn’t have a good mid to make him a threat at close close range.
All that yapping aside, this doesn’t do a lot for his neutral or close close range. So- I appreciate the scraps, but where is our glow up? Look at reptile at the beginning of the game and look now, nitara got smt, Havik needs; a fast close range mid Make is DB4 his other armoured move(if his gimmick is that he’s the slow hard hitting tank who can take a punch. Have him embrace it. Because looking at the rest of the cast he needs it.), I think he should have a B3 that looks like his F4 but with a slight difference in animation where he lifts his knee up higher to do a sort of stomp that leads to a ground bounce sort of like kung Lao or general shao. I’d like to see something that allows him to embrace this chaotic immortal zombie.
The sub-zero change aren't enough. The correct changes would be to remove the armor gap on 123 and leave it -12 on the block. It didn't need to be safe call a kameo for that. As for 21 same thing fix the scaling sure but either remove the gap so he can jail without getting armored or attacked through his gaps or move the 212 gap to the 12 portion of the string so it's risky for the overhead be isn't forcing a mind game on himself when trying to jail
F123 isn’t what he needed but welcomed. I always wondered why it was so negative and they’re not many reasons to ever use the full string now it is. Hopefully after Evo we can a major change for all characters
@billyford4836 it's welcome, but if their goal was to get it used more, they chose poorly. Removing the gap would have been better. That way, on block, you could call a kameo to keep it safe like goro/Stryker or on hit use scorpion/Sonya to combo. And with the new Sonya leg grab changes, he would have a somewhat real mix to a level he might actually pick her over khameleon.
You will not be seeing Peacemaker in tournaments often if at all anymore lol. He now requires effort to win with so most competitive players are gonna drop him even if hes still strong
No. No it wasn't. MK1 is still a rolling dumpster fire of a game. NRS could be one of the steepest downfalls I've seen in a long time. Just terrible. Keep on shilling though. Wouldn't want to lose that access. I get it.
