Gillstolemyride · @Gillstolemyride
18th Jan 2020 from TwitLonger
Dropping Skarlet, a list of problems for her and a list of buffs needed.
Hello, I'm Gillstolemyride,
I'm a competitive multi fighting games player and I have been competing in several different fighting games since 2007, and this, is the very first time I'm dropping a character since then.
A list of low / bottom tiers I have mained to make you understand that her tier isn't the problem here, rather her inability to function at all in the MK11 meta.
- Victor, Vampire Savior, bottom 3
- Dudley, since Arcade edition, Bottom 5
- Hokutomaru, Mark Of the wolves, Bottom 6
- Pielle, Breakers Revenge, Bottom 3
So it's not like this is my first low tier character, and excluding dudley in usf4, all of them have remained low tier ever since.
Skarlet has several structural and design problems, or at best, some glaring weaknesses that have totally not been accounted for. This doc is about (mostly) heart pierce, since i find her second variation useless (and yes, i know what i'm talking about) and her third highly situational but heavily flawed too.
I will start with a thorough anlysis of her problems, then move on to desired changes and why.
A lot of people keep telling me she is fine as she is, and some people told me she's top tier (LOL) but none of these people play her or if they do as a side character, don't play her in tournament aside super specific matchups and situations. Overall, nobody since the game's launch, AFAIK has taken any major top 8 placing offline in any high stakes tournament.
- Inability to challenge characters with air fireballs at a 45* degree angle and due to this, to control space, which invalidates her design and perceived strong point.
She simply has no answer for someone jumping at her due to no buttons or options of her covering that angle / space and buttons aren't fast enough to punish on block. Her teleport is way too slow and has way too much recovery that couple with her buttons we're almost at 60 frames overall for her to attack. This allow any opponent to literally not think and close distance unchallenged, which brings me to the next point.
- Inability to shake off pressure
Makes sense for a zoner you'd say, and i'd agree, if her zoning was anything to fear... once you have learned to duck projectiles and react to overheads (22 frames, 17 on block, active for 1 frame, doing 70 damage and with no combo potential) you just need a little patience and once in she's done, as she has no decent tools.
Her only non-high button that is faster than 10 frames is her D1, which she can get nothing from in terms of combos. Her lows aren't threatening enough, as her b3,4 does less than 100 damage on hit, so the opponent will always just neutral duck in your face, always having a D2 Krushing Blow at the ready to ruin your life. B3,4 has a gap, F4,3 has a gap and ALL of F2 followups are easily punishable or situationally punishable, so once you touch that button you could eat a hard punish. Her "stagger" is -6 ob, so the followups are either all interruptable and punishable or flawless blockable and punishable.
Your opponent simply doesn't have to deal with a risk big enough against her not to duck in your face and you'd need 5 successful separate b3,4 on hit to make up for an average combo the big hitters will land on you as a punish.
Her teleport is an option i guess, but some chars can punish it on reaction, even the far one at 50 frames of recovery (lel).
But let's go through the proposed changes. Since I'm dropping this character I won't have the begging approach, this is what she needs to be a functional character NRS, but do what you want I guess, you never cared about this character aside from milking with towers, skins and all of that jazz.
- S1 : Extend Hitbox forward and upward, so this button can CONFIDENTLY be used as an anti air and lead to a 212,212,4XXtentacle. She struggles a lot with anti airs, this will help.
- B1 : This button is only really good when the KB for the string is available, otherwise it is way too slow, -13 on block and the string attached to it is easily flawless blockable. Make it 15 Frames starter, make it -10 on block and remove the gap. Still punishable on block alone, but harder to be punished, and it would give the choice to the player, if it was to combo from 212, to either go for damage with 212,44XXtentacle or get a better oki with b1,2(currently the string is at +38 for no krushing blow). The impact of this change would be small overall, but could give Skarlet players extra frame advantage to set up their zoning.
- S2 : her only midscreen launcher (yeah, in MK11 where many chars can launch from practically anything) is a 13 frames DUCKABLE mid. The only way she can launch you, can be punished with a D2 KB RIGHT IN HER FACE. This creates situations where people will duck in your face after eating your D1s and wait for your S2 whiff to ruin you or, when trying to punish a recovery with your teleport (due to how bad it is) duck the S2 since they have recovered and ruin you there too. You have f3,4 , f4,3 and F2 into specials for this (of into F2,1) but they are ALL either punishable or flawless blockable and the followup interruptable.
Make it a 10 frame TRUE mid, make it a -2 ob since it has decent range and currently is 0 ob but make it a true mid because this situation is by far the most frustrating for skarlets to deal with.
- B2 : Overhead: remove the Krushing Blow which is next to useless anyway right now due to its requirements and give it a bounce on hit. Currently -17 on block, make it -14 on block so people have to work and be on point to punish it. This will give skarlet a mini launcher, mini because the full 212, 212 and followup damage would only be accessible at close range, whether on mid range it would probably boil down to F4 into special or F2 into special. Still, this would give skarlet an actual high low (albeit still poor) and would make her more scary near the corner, as it would become there a full launcher.
- F2 : 11 F startup down from 13, increase the active frames and diminish the recovery and keep it active until the end. This move doesn't work for any of its purposes: Its hitbox arc doesn't reach over her shoulders, making it a liability in her anti air game. It's impossible to use as a poke (-17 on block and all followups punishable or flawless blockable and punishable).
I really don't get what this move is supposed to do, a major liability to use, depsite looking good on paper. I mean, WTF : 37 frames of recovery and -17 on block WTF?
- S3 I barely use this move honestly, this is basically the player trying to be a magician and reading into the future, except even reading before the jump actually happened (21 frames startup lel) I have had people actually jump through and the move completely whiffing and them going through the whiff. Also Double digits on recovery (27f lol)
I'd have this move removed from the game honestly, it can be ducked and probably punished on reaction due to its stupidly long recovery and doesn't really give skarlet anything but a lackluster long range "i see into the future anti air". remove this move and apply the same concept to cover peak jump height and air fireball throwers while giving it actual hitboxes and active frames. So we don't have to lose at character select against air fireball characters.
- D3 Make it a 9 frames plz and remove a few frames of recovery. This game is dominated by other chars d3 and D4, yet skarlet can't compete or play the same game with hers.
- B4 -11 on block please.
- F4 This button looks like they wanted to give Skarlet a stagger but decided to have a laugh with it. All of the followups are either punishable or flawless blockable, it's -6 on block, which with skarlet buttons means giving up your turn almost always.Startup is fine, but make it -4 on block so at least she can set up a bait / distance game decently.
Hop attacks: I'm honestly not sure what they are across the board, but -17 / -12 makes them a big risk considering skarlet's struggle with buttons. Irrelevant.
- U2 WTF were you thinking? This makes her flawless block game MUCH weaker than other characters AND shortens her combos significantly. It whiffs on most stuff due toi it havign basically no horizontal range. This needs reworked HARD.
- 2,1,2 This is the only nerf I can ask and have no problem in getting. Make this WAY more punishable. not because it isn't already easy to punish, but because 2,1 is hitconfirmable, so havign the 2 followup on block should hurt skarlet players.
- F2,1 Remove the gap.
- Dagger Dance (Parry) Make it 7 frames, it would help her baiting game a lot and challenge staggerable strings / normals etc.
- Blood ritual : Free this slot plz, this move is way too situational. Useless unless the opponent has 5% life and is fullscreen.
- Blood ball (slowed down version in V2 only) make it uncrouchable from 3/4 to fullscreen while the ball travels, actually making it worth spending the meter for it.
- EX Blood trail (thanks Eddy wang for the idea) make it function as a launcher by removing the autoblock. beefy combos from very short strings and all of that. It would make F2 actually scary now and give purpose to a lot of other buttons and strings since it can suddenly lead to a full launcher. F2, F4, F4,3, S1,2 , B3.. hell, even B1 with the proposed changes maybe.
This would probably be the biggest and most useful single change, it would pump her damage and fear factor a lot, and would give a purpose to her offensive meter, which right now she doesn't have, even with current ex blood trail and ex blood splatter,l being at best highly situational, at worse just useless.
- Teleport : Normal verison 1f + 42f of recovery , far version 1f startup + 50 of recovery.
Cetrion's teleport is 1f start up + 37 recovery, ex is 23f startup + 15 f recovery , and she can do both in the air.
Find the differences.
I have tried my best with this character, and I firmly believe that whoever is telling me that this character is strong isn't someone that will ever play her in tourney, plus she has no results.
These are the changes that I think would make her actually viable without changing what she does and how she plays.
I'm moving on...