Fighting Game Chat

[cosmic forge]

hmm yes impeccable spacing

[velvet wren]

Every smash game deserves nothing tbh

I. don’t say this in the elitist sense, I say this in that the community sucks

[cosmic forge]

That’s just mean dude

[soft vapor]

Spoilers for smash ult about smash balls I guess: ||the problem is you can tell which are fake once you play the game enough||

[worthy crystal]

Do we need to spoiler this

[soft vapor]

Idk if he knows

They lost all magic for me when I noticed and confirmed it

[shrewd furnace]

It’s part of the smash tips, it’ll be fine

[small furnace]

even i know and i dont play smash

[pearl burrow]

I’m with Raz on this

[hexed forum]

“Community sucks” is the take you develop when you exclusively read the headliner stories the game brings up

They don’t tend to be good

But it has nothing to do with like 99% of the rest of the scene

Which the scene in question is massive

[small furnace]

community sucks independent of headliner stories

[cosmic forge]

Like
Which one

My scene is fine

[small furnace]

all of them. i just like shitting on smash lol its not so serious

[vivid furnace]

i like the game n find it fun, i will be playing more once i get a copy, but i dont think im going to enter tournaments anytime soon

who knows, maybe that'll change

[small furnace]

being fr, thats cool. idk if it is ever worth going to tourneys in smash with how hostile and capricious nintendo is with that but if u find it fun, just play it casually

[cosmic forge]

First time on SF6: the Battle Hub announcer is the gendermost

[cosmic forge]

I hate Bosch

Chubby trans woman asks for personal training and is immediately fucking divekicked

[vivid furnace]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaqmUXzipyg whaddya mean yami yugi in dbfz.

what d o you fucking MEAN yami yugi in dbfz

holy shit this mod looks like actual cinema

[pearl burrow]

MODDERS ARE UNSTOPPABLE

They made a really good SSJ God Goku a few years ago

And this specific modder made the DBFZ Dio

.....okay now that I've actually seen the trailer. He looks like Asuka. In a good way

[vivid furnace]

right???

i saw the card mechanic and i instantly knew it was asuka inspired

[vivid furnace]

i believe they also made a sukuna mod?

[vivid furnace]

also i officially have ssbu on my switch now

i'll spend tomorrow playing it a bit, tonights for writing n figuring out character backstories

[vivid furnace]

blehhh i cant play it without nintendos bs xbl

cringe as fuck im ngl

[pearl burrow]

Ah yeah, now I remember why I stopped playing Fighterz

No Steam Deck support and I wasn't paying $30 for Nintendo Online

[vivid furnace]

its $20 a year which isnt horrible but still like

come on.

steam figured this shit out years ago. nintendo certainly makes more than enough money to not worry about it

[gaunt cloud]

Sorry kid, they spent too much of their bugdet of the 70$ game with no shrine on shrine island

[cosmic forge]

It does suck

But at least you get
hehe
emulation

lmao

[velvet wren]

Probably was harsh on Smash but goddamn is it hard to not be sometimes. Maybe just represents how media is a magnifying glass

[small furnace]

mannnn my roommate and i got to replaying heritage for the future this game is some true bullshit holy

@worthy crystal ever played htft?

[worthy crystal]

Never too seriously

But I know how to do some dio stuff

[small furnace]

so many mfers have touch of deaths and unblockables

this game is p fun though but i cant imagine taking it seriously at all

[worthy crystal]

Yes

[worthy crystal]

Ppl played hnk for money

It’s ok

[small furnace]

lmfao

okay fair

[worthy crystal]

Also half the unblockables are fake because of stand on mode

[small furnace]

stand on is so bullshit too

[worthy crystal]

The TODs not so much but. You know

[small furnace]

yeah

[worthy crystal]

Mechanically idm it that much but in execution it’s crazy how big of a divide it creates on the tier list

Like if every character did it it’s like

Fine idk

Universal mechanics are allowed to be broken but like half the roster just can’t

[small furnace]

only non stand-on character to be strong is literally just petshop and thats tournament banned

actually insane how they approached the balance on it

[worthy crystal]

I mean pet shop is how u balance that type of character

But balance is a strong word for that

[small furnace]

but fr? kakyoin is kinda fun

dio is fun

ice is fun

[worthy crystal]

If a character is lacking an insanely important defense mechanic u have to compensate by making them have very strong offense

Or at least very good R/R

(The videl issue)

[small furnace]

yeah damn lol

[worthy crystal]

Or the Elizabeth issue (which was solved) or the Margaret issue (which was how she was balanced from day 1)

[small furnace]

part of me would like to have seen them go a bit harder on balance in the sense that this should have been more broken

[worthy crystal]

you’re right let’s let stand on characters get knocked down

But also it’s really funny that like half of the top tiers don’t actually like doing anything that unfair

Like dio jojo abdul all just do a lot of damage and play the mechanics really well

Kak is a mistake though

Possibly one of the most broken characters in any fg that’s been played for money

[small furnace]

yeah its why kak and pet shop stand out too much

[worthy crystal]

And he wasn’t even tournament banned until like

Not recently but semi recently

[small furnace]

roomie says around like 6 years ago ish

despite pet shop being banned forever

but yeah i'd have loved if this game had made all stand on characters as busted as kak

and all passive stands to be as busted as pet shop

[worthy crystal]

And pet shop was banned year 1 to my understanding

[small furnace]

yea ppl knew he was fucked day 1

kak was a more recent development

[worthy crystal]

Even if you look back in like 2020 discourse ppl said stuff like “he’s banned because you need matchup knowledge”

Him being actual top 1 top 1 top 1 is like a very recent development

Lifespan wise

[small furnace]

ye

[worthy crystal]

Stuff like that is always cool to me but most old kuso are very unexplored

GGML is def the best example

Justice isn’t even top 3 anymore

[small furnace]

fuc

yeah

i love these old games

[worthy crystal]

That game evolved so much and somehow it’s even more unplayable now than it was before

[small furnace]

unfort idt we own a physical missing link copy

[worthy crystal]

I mean

There’s probably a countable number of readable copies left in the world

[small furnace]

true

its fun fr tho to explore these older games again

hadnt really been playing fighting games in months and then we've been playing hftf all week now

[worthy crystal]

+r is a much less extreme example

The johnnysaince

And the inosaince

[small furnace]

its like doing a line after years

[worthy crystal]

Meanwhile ky stocks hit an all time low

[worthy crystal]

INSANE ANALOGY

Do u just play on fightcade?

I’ve lowk been thinking about picking it up again

[small furnace]

no on dreamcast

[worthy crystal]

Also this is how I felt playing mvc2 again

[small furnace]

we swpaped to the ps4 rerelease after the dreamcast has been fucky

[worthy crystal]

After 12 years

[worthy crystal]

I wish it had a steam port

Would unironically cop it

[small furnace]

im so upset its not on steam

yeah this game is like actually fire

its so broken

but its fun

[worthy crystal]

Most kuso like

Actually are fun

At least to legacy fg players I feel it’s more common to enjoy having more tools that are all stronger

Which kuso is often a very extreme example of

[small furnace]

true!

i kind of have to hold that strive def hurt my love of modern fighting games even tho i dont want to admit that it was guilty gear of all series that did it

but i think i was just built for the older games

[velvet wren]

Ik HFTF is to me a rather fun kusoge

But yeah do genuinely apologise to the Smash players. I was way harsher than I should’ve

[worthy crystal]

A lot of ppl got burnt out on fgs because of strive

Very very notably, romolla

Every generation of fgs is made for a new generation of fg players

And a lot of those players can’t handle change as well as they’d like to think unfortunately (me included)

[small furnace]

yeah

like dont get me wrong: i dont hate strive

i just realize im just not about the gameplay it wants

but it def feels quite disappointing to me cus i feel like i went from x -> xx -> xrd without much issue

[worthy crystal]

Yeah strive is just a different game

[worthy crystal]

These are all built on the same framework though

Like they have some system mechanic changes but

They’re like legit built on the same frame data and game feel

Strive tries very much to be very different

[small furnace]

yeah ig i just didnt understand how different

[shrewd furnace]

I was moreso disappointed because it felt so different at launch from what it felt like in beta

[pearl zodiac]

if someone mains hol horse in that game avoid them at all costs

[worthy crystal]

This was its own issue

But strive beta was like actually a shit game idk

Risk reward was so fucking whack

[pearl zodiac]

I'll be honest here and confess that Strive was my first real FG that I actively got into with friends, technical first was Soul Calibur 4 but that shit was ass

[worthy crystal]

All the anti airs were so bad and air to airs and air combos were so bad and ground damage was so high and air dashes were extremely hard to deal with

And half the characters were half baked and the other half were beyond broken

[pearl zodiac]

I thought I enjoyed Strive but then I played CF and Melty Blood and KOF2000

[worthy crystal]

Just a very bad beta

And to be clear the release only fixed like 40% of those issues

[pearl zodiac]

I just don't think I like strive combos

I'm not sure what it is about them

[small furnace]

the beta was real bad yeah

[small furnace]

really its just a different flavor of combo from what the series is known for

[pearl zodiac]

playing Ky didn't help either I think

[small furnace]

definitely

[pearl zodiac]

bro went from xrd to strive

[small furnace]

the thing about guilty gear is that the series was famous for its gatlings and freeform combo potential with the roman cancel allowing a ton of free form abilities

[pearl zodiac]

and then they broke that rule by making some actions non-RCable

[small furnace]

turning mistakes into combos or a stray hit into a combo allowed characters to just use their full kit

as long as you had meter

and they had you build a fuck ton of meter quick

[small furnace]

eh this was a thing in some older guilty gear games anyways

not nearly as bad as it was with strive though because strive also killed a lot of spare tools

characters lost like 1 sometimes 2 supers

dead angles

[shrewd furnace]

I still miss faust

[small furnace]

a lot of tools lost in the specials

and gatlings

gatlings being gone as a whole

[pearl zodiac]

I think BlazBlue was always what I wanted Guilty Gear to be for me, no RC on whiff helps with that

[small furnace]

blazblue is p solid for sure

[worthy crystal]

I mean arcsys does this a semi regular amount

Litchi famously can’t DPRC in bb

[worthy crystal]

Unless ur a privileged brat named Leo whitefang

It just feels weird that strive simultaneously tried to normalize rewards on hit across the roster and make access to KDs easier for everyone but they got rid of basically every Gatling into 2d that used to basically be universal in older games

Like the gatlings themselves just feel very unintuitive

And

I’m not sure why they decided to make P buttons so abysmal dogshit without hyper character specific tools to pair with them

Like there was a version of anji who had a 6f 5p that didn’t convert to 6h on normal hit with worse recovery

Like what

[small furnace]

strive was a terribly confused game

[north latch]

Strive also tried to have cross over appeal for casuals, which is a first for GG games, that’s probably where the issues began and continued

[shrewd furnace]

It’s also when it started really getting popular but it’s hard to attribute that to strive’s design goals or because guilty gear in general was getting more popular

[worthy crystal]

Strive being more accessible is definitely huge in that lol

[wicked quarry]

So apparently in Nen Impact, Kurapika now can loop his footstomp at the end of a combo 40 times

It does fuck all damage but builds bar

[shrewd furnace]

If it’s guaranteed then expect everyone to do it unless they’re about to lose to timeout

I love free meter, don’t you?

[wicked quarry]

I mean yeah thats basically the idea

Its just really funny that the game has a "this isnt quite an infinite but you still do the same move 40 times in a row"

[cosmic forge]

@vivid furnace in sf6 training for the first time, for some reason i’m really struggling with oicho kara

Can you still do it?

[vivid furnace]

i have never played honda before in my life raz

[cosmic forge]

oh

[vivid furnace]

ive been an akuma main from the get go

[cosmic forge]

Also maybe I’m scrubquoting here but charge inputs like

feel longer in 6

Is that a weird comment

Like the charge time feels a bit longer somehow

[vivid furnace]

iiiii don't know to be honest

i haven't seen anyone mention charge times at least

[cosmic forge]

I’m also fuckin beside myself why does Honda have a blessed by the heavens move

[small furnace]

are you on pad, stick or hitbox?

[cosmic forge]

Stick

[small furnace]

idk then

[cosmic forge]

No but seriously why did they give Honda like fuckin stock buffs on HHS

They really played with him, this is fun

[vivid furnace]

oh the hands powerup?

yeah thats sick

big beowulf from skullgirls vibes

[late frost]

there's a nonzero chance the charge time has changed
I couldn't tell you
I only vaguely remember that Guile and one other character had nonstandard charge times in SFIV

[cosmic forge]

Okay I wanna bitch slightly about Terry

Why is Rising Tackle shoryu punch in SF6

In FF it’s down charge up A right?

Why is it a shoryu now

[cosmic forge]

Lily’s kinda fun even if she is just T Hawk with a gimmick

[faint ice]

Charge character I played the most was Deejay and charge time didn't feel crazy or anything

[cosmic forge]

Probably just one of those memory things where you imagine it a different way

(for me I mean)

[cosmic forge]

@vivid furnace update on learning how to play lily:

i’m pretty sure c.hp sucks the sauce out of the entire rest of her moveset

like “we can’t buff lily, she has c.hp”

[late frost]

That is indeed a common sentiment

[cosmic forge]

Oh hey Meta

Did you know they made Condor Spire without wind good

It’s called Burn Knuckle

Nah but like idk

I think my issue with Lily is like you get the command grab and then what

You just

Get wind?

Like it feels like you don’t have as much room to press your advantage after a 360

[late frost]

I'm not familiar with Lily
But that sounds about right
The wind stock helps you get back in to continue the pressure
Capcom probably didn't want a true vortex to be enforceable, so this was their alternative

[vivid furnace]

that button do be disjointed as FUCK

idk what lily does to be honest

i've seen her played at a high level in TNS tourneys n the like

but everything she does just seems like other characters do it better?

[worthy crystal]

@faint ice @small furnace who do we think they’re gonna rework in strive

[small furnace]

they should rework strive as a whole

being selfish i'd like them to rework millia to be xrd millia

[faint ice]

hc 100%

decent chance on nago ngl, they kinda made him more and more static and now he's a guard crush normals bot

If they do anything about guard crush they have to change nago, whether it's back to blender or a diff direction

Please god elphelt just make her a real character

[wicked quarry]

Im hoping that theyre changing how guard crush works (or removing it) and reworking every character that uses it, some more, some less

Happy Chaos is probably a shoe-in either way though

[shrewd furnace]

At least Millia has her core mechanics, give me faust back

Elphelt doesn’t deserve to be a real character after last game

[faint ice]

With their current reworks I think they're content with potemkin but idt they like how ram ended up still

only other char I'd lowkey "rework" is chipp but I think there's a lot of changes that should go around and hopefully its a decent shakeup

[vivid furnace]

real

[wicked quarry]

Anyway realistically I feel like reworks will either target problematic/heavily disliked characters, or characters that just never really landed

... problem is the latter is mostly season 4 characters and I feel theyre too new to rework lmao

For former I think HC and Asuka are the top two contenders

[faint ice]

like -
give lucy something to do beyond wire & make hack risk reward worth
unika weapons free a real super please, forget flavor, some strike throw stuff
make venom not a stinger bot, lowkey want his balls to have proximity stuff, carcass being a pseudo frametrap is w/e
I dont like that slayer can 2p out of pressure but thats prob just bias
make sin eat do something? (theyll never do this)
jack o's non attack commands worth to press ever
give zato's new move an actual use case
It is time for 50% hp Dragon Install

[wicked quarry]

Give Chipp his teleport back

Actually give Venom his teleport back

[faint ice]

we are not giving chipp anything

[wicked quarry]

But Venom should have his teleport

[small furnace]

no

[worthy crystal]

I mean unironically I think a millia rework wouldn’t be out of nowhere

But I think if anything they’d probably bastardize her even more

I could see a rehaul where they make her oki much easier to get and much less scary

[small furnace]

yeahh def dont really trust a proper rework to what i'd personally like but thats fine

[vivid furnace]

loel

[vivid furnace]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vw0trKTgLUc really hope this doesnt get nuked 🙏

its not official btw

so

[late frost]

https://youtu.be/vOkxaWOj34s

[late frost]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaGvmRTUUvU

we are being teased

interesting ||he's being booked as a heel||

@round creek

[round creek]

MY BOOOOOOOOOOY

@cosmic forge

[late frost]

oh right
Alex is from actual factual New York, right?

[round creek]

Yes

We finally have properly NORTHERN Alex

[late frost]

I was wondering why he said ||"in this city"||

[round creek]

I can't find the panel for the life of me but there's a segment in one of the Udon comics where he suplexes someone into a car while going "MOVE IT DOITCHBAG"

I am glad he finally gets to sound like that

Even if I'll always have a soft spot for his SF3 voice clips that sound

Absolutely nothing like a New Yorker but are delightfully hammy

I do still think his beanie looks stupid, but I get what they're going for

[late frost]

wonder if they'll give him any traditional heel moves like eye gouges or low blows

[round creek]

It would be cool

I do sort of struggle to assume they will given by grappler standards he already has a very well rounded kit

But it's possible

Like an eye poke being a momentary stun of sorts would be cool but he already has Stun Gun Headbutt

Same deal with a low blow actually

[round creek]

https://youtu.be/ACnFBb_RAfw?si=4wzFhMvhXCGV3of1

Meanwhile as SNK just

does this

Kenshiro for COTW ifg?

[cosmic forge]

I honestly hope it’s SNK doing a full FotNS game

[north latch]

That’s a sick teaser by SNK

That’s how you do a trailer

[wicked quarry]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QFULV2ut0iw

Time to see if were looking at a zoner or Elphelt

[pearl zodiac]

caitlyn is absolutely a zoner

it wouldn't make much sense for them to make her like elphelt since GG characters are rushdown and ADC's never do that

[shrewd furnace]

We got not only Elphelt

But the part of elphelt they removed from strive

[wicked quarry]

Oh she has Aegis Reflector

[shrewd furnace]

Now to see if charge shot has a way to be unblockable and we got literally the most annoying xrd elphelt playstyle

[wicked quarry]

[wicked quarry]

Eh, they dont follow league playstyles that closely in that regard

[shrewd furnace]

Yeah, one pet peeve of mine is when people try to literally just port a league character into their fan designs

[pearl zodiac]

kinda cringe actually

[wicked quarry]

Anyway

... this doesnt look that exciting me tbh

[shrewd furnace]

I think it depends on her normals

[pearl zodiac]

that's kinda how every character in this game has felt

for me at least

[shrewd furnace]

If she has good normals then I think I’ll like her

[wicked quarry]

Like she isnt Jinx

But she doesnt feel different enough from Jinx

[shrewd furnace]

Even if I find elphelt’s grenade rifle yrc unblockable boring

[wicked quarry]

Does that make sense?

[pearl zodiac]

I don't know what exactly it is about the animations in this game but they don't feel as rewarding as I like

[wicked quarry]

Depends on the character but I can see it

Idk if this really is the only character of season 1

This feels a bit like a dud?

[shrewd furnace]

Actually no we’re missing the biggest part here

This is a game for arcane fans first and foremost, remember?

[faint ice]

xrd elphelt is actually a p decent comparison point

[worthy crystal]

(She’s elphelt)

[pearl zodiac]

well that's just bad game design idk

[worthy crystal]

It’s really not

Her kit looks incredibly cool

Design wise it’s a weird blend of tools that most other champs already have but in conjunction with each other they look fun

I have some morbid curiosities about the bear trap and if it restands but I would assume it doesn’t

[shrewd furnace]

Elphelt is pretty bad design ngl

[worthy crystal]

Elphelt is pretty bad design for reasons that this character does not possess

Elphelts kit in xrd itself is actually one of the best designed ones in the game arcsys was just allergic to balancing her

[shrewd furnace]

If they keep elphelt’s unblockable with charge shot then Cait is gonna be one of the most busted point characters

Gain meter, charge up a shot with an assist to lock down, unblockable shot, tag combo, DHC

[worthy crystal]

Did they say anywhere it’s unblockable

[shrewd furnace]

Nah but it’s just with the elphelt analogies

[worthy crystal]

.

[shrewd furnace]

If they keep that aspect of elphelt at least

[worthy crystal]

Literally nothing about the character implies that

And I feel like they would definitely have shown it in the trailer if so

[shrewd furnace]

Who knows how much of elphelt’s dna theyre gonna keep in her

[worthy crystal]

So true maybe they forgot to show us pine berry too

And tk bridal oops +14

[shrewd furnace]

Also since it’s a continuously patching game I wouldn’t put it past them to just add it

[pearl zodiac]

I probably would've liked her kit more if she had some ricochet shenanigans

[shrewd furnace]

We got bad pine berry

[worthy crystal]

So true I wouldn’t put it past them to give illaoi a fullscreen tentacle command grab that TODs because it’s a continuously patching game

[shrewd furnace]

True

It’s riot

[worthy crystal]

My only other question is if the gun tracks or it can just be tilted up manually

[pearl zodiac]

does she have an ammo resource

[shrewd furnace]

Not that we’ve seen but it’s possible they can add between trailer and launch

[worthy crystal]

I cannot imagine they would

[pearl zodiac]

I like her super that's like ky's grinders from xyrd

[worthy crystal]

Aegis reflector

If you’re woke it’s actually bufula @small furnace

[pearl zodiac]

I never really played 4 or Third Strike so I don't really know it by that name

man I wanna try playing Naoto again

[small furnace]

elphelt should have died and gone like kliff and justice

[shrewd furnace]

Nah Justice is hype

After all her nerfs

[pearl zodiac]

I like Justice and wish they tried revisiting her but that's how it goes

[worthy crystal]

They should’ve patched her out of xrd

One of the worst handled cases of character balance oat

[pearl zodiac]

johnny...

[shrewd furnace]

And that’s her nerfed version

[small furnace]

yeah but she's dead and hasnt been brought back (not counting jack-o)

elphelt should have died and stayed gone

[pearl zodiac]

design-wise she did

[wicked quarry]

Cait looks way more Zoner than Elphelt tbh

[worthy crystal]

They both went on the same rollercoaster ride

There’s an alternative timeline where the game was the exact same in every single patch but they rebuffed elphelt slightly more than Johnny

Instead of the other way around

Both started as obscenely broken incontestable top 1s, got nerfed to very broken slightly contestable top 1st, further nerfed to just top 5, and then towards the end of the game slowly dripped unnerfs to a lot of the earlier changes (even though the characters were still both top 5)

Faust went on a miniature version of this

Meanwhile bedman/ramlethal/jacko/zato:

Anyways as a semi interesting side note I think it’s quite funny seeing that modern xrd players all basically unanimously think that millia is top 3

It’s always interesting to see how a decade and new cast of characters shapes people’s opinions on the meta

The ancients really thought that a character who was unblockable and un anti airable and always plus and could fly was mid tier…

[pearl zodiac]

I wanna play some CF right now but I can't find the motivation to plug in my pad

[shrewd furnace]

Then connect it through Bluetooth

[worthy crystal]

I wanna play xrd again but nobody in my area plays

I hate driving to Boston and idk if bbb even does numbers anymore

[pearl zodiac]

did xrd never get a rollback update?

[worthy crystal]

It did

I just don’t know anyone who plays like that

I jammed too hard and my one oomf stopped playing w me

The same thing also happened in +r

Maybe strive will really be my game soon

I’m genetically predisposed to play demons

[pearl zodiac]

I tried getting into xrd way back when but I only play ky and johnny and I wanna get better at CF instead

[worthy crystal]

Xrd just has such good game feel to me

As long as I’m not playing vs a yrc fireball bot at least

[pearl zodiac]

I just don't think the graphics have aged too well

that's such a non-issue but still

[faint ice]

tracks https://vxtwitter.com/Play2XKO/status/2011136159532085490

2XKO (@Play2XKO)

caitlyn moves. start aim training

▶ Play video

vxTwitter / fixvx · Jan 13, 2026, 6:00 PM

[worthy crystal]

No I saw

I just mean idk if the gun hold tilts up to track jumps automatically or if you manually tilt it

[wicked quarry]

It starts tilting before Darius jumps

So I assume latter

[small furnace]

it does feel nice to play but to me xx is where its at

[worthy crystal]

I really like how +r feels too but feels both a little more phrenetic and swingier than I usually like

Xrd is generally a pretty stable game even when you play casino characters

I’m also just not a huge fan of FRCs

Or certain +r characters that aren’t in xrd

[gaunt cloud]

What's wrong with kliff mr cake

:dubismile:

[small furnace]

kills you with hammers

[worthy crystal]

Bannable question

Half the cast of +r is sick and the other half serve as warnings of how not to design fg characters

[shrewd furnace]

I just like faust

[worthy crystal]

Is this tester ban thing real are these people real are we being for real @faint ice

[faint ice]

People are lowkey just being extra

The worst part is

Frosty is 10 days after a patch with a 50k pool

That's pretty volatile

So people are pitchforking that any early knowledge can decide the whole bracket

[worthy crystal]

It’s just insane

Fighting games do pre release stuff all the time and people have never made an issue out of it

I’m starting to actually feel like a boomer people need to learn to get the fuck over it

Ok actually punk made a tweet about it im about to crash out

What the fuck do you MEAN pro players get too much privilege from someone who played the cracked sf6 beta

[pearl zodiac]

wait what happened

[gaunt cloud]

https://x.com/JurassicOri/status/2011116758992822700

Ori (@JurassicOri)

The competitive integrity of 2xko is a joke. All these players shamelessly talking about how much they know about stuff behind the scenes and how much early access they have had to characters and stuff is genuinely unbelievable😭

X · Jan 13, 2026, 4:42 PM

Drama kickstarted from here i think

[faint ice]

People were invited to riot to play a few hours of caitlyn for content

[paper notch]

Theres no shot people are up in arms about that

[pearl zodiac]

is it safe to blame this on League players

[faint ice]

not really

in my opinion

this has honestly been the build up of

"oh so the game is in beta" "and this is alpha" "and this is open beta" "and we're going live!" "and this is release 1.0" (still hasn't happened yet btw, will be jan 20)

and over this period people have got to playtest, look at alpha builds, game being tested at evo etc

and it's almost like there's a whole other half to the game that "invited partys" got to witness and the public only gets to eventually experience

not to mention how there hasn't even been console until this upcoming 1.0 with cait

and I feel like this competitive integrity angle is a right time right place complaint including these feelings carried over

[shrewd furnace]

People have had decent strength tournaments in beta, they have no excuse to not know what things to look out for

[pearl burrow]

Fighting Games have changed...

I'm with Guy on this one

[soft vapor]

Riot has always invited people over to play characters early

At least for league

Does the change in genre to fighting game make this more heinous or taboo for some reason

[worthy crystal]

The only thing that’s more taboo about it with fighting games is that fg players are notoriously one of the most whiney communities of all time

[shrewd furnace]

I guess fighting games do have a history of not allowing devs or people helping devs to not play comp

[worthy crystal]

Complete and total inability to accept any personal responsibility for losses so they blame any other possible element before ever looking inwards

[shrewd furnace]

But that’s nowhere near enough of a reason

[worthy crystal]

It happened with a bunch of NRS games too

[shrewd furnace]

Since Strive beta was a thing and no one made a stink about that

[worthy crystal]

Let’s just ban everyone who got to play 2xko beta while we’re here

Console players only tournament

[shrewd furnace]

I can understand maybe a small embargo on comp play to catch up but that’s the same as saying “you played this game longer than me so I deserve the win, not you”

[worthy crystal]

If people were okay with competitive players on cracked betas then there is zero reason whatsoever to be against pre release testing

At the end of the day there will literally always just be people who have more time to lab and play something than others

[vivid furnace]

ok why does chun-li/spencer/akuma feel like a budget version of nova/spencer/doom

like i wouldnt recommend playing it in a normal tournament setting where nova/spencer/doom is available, just on a tier-list basis

but like in tns' ratio tourneys? this sounds actually really damn good

[worthy crystal]

https://2xko.riotgames.com/en-us/news/game-updates/2xko-patch-notes-1-1-1-jan-20-2026/

[faint ice]

https://vxtwitter.com/Play2XKO/status/2013280287669813443

2XKO (@Play2XKO)

season 1 starts january 20-21.
- new champ: caitlyn
- arcade skins
- new battle pass
- and moreeee

▶ Play video

vxTwitter / fixvx · Jan 19, 2026, 4:00 PM

[vivid furnace]

https://x.com/Sephi_Tetsu/status/2013328585424015550 ignoring how fucked this tier list is i lowkey hate tierlists that are like this

Jin (@Sephi_Tetsu)

La mejor y definitiva tier list de DBFZ

X · Jan 19, 2026, 7:11 PM

if your tier list has less than four tiers, just say everyone in the game is viable if you're good enough

A, B, C, D, F, and potentially S if the game warrants it

DBFZ's one of those games anyways where basically everyone's viable, it's just some characters are distinctly better and some distinctly worse than the rest of the cast

[gaunt cloud]

According to twitter goku black is either bottom 3 or top 5 so i appreciate the insight

[shrewd furnace]

Theyre the same in a game with 3 characters

Actually though I miss games where it’s a super small roster

[worthy crystal]

I disagree

I think dbfz is a game that is un-tier-listable in the first place but

I think s>a>b/c are really all you need

Like what actually distinguishes a D tier from a C tier character

If you have characters that are really that strong or really that bad then S/F are appropriate otherwise I think most of the roster can pretty easily be divided into thirds unless it’s really that high powered or a game, and then it doesn’t matter

[cosmic forge]

@sharp imp https://fxtwitter.com/i/status/2006368825596694586

Bear (@bearded_bowser)

Super Smash Brothers Ultimate for Nintendo Switch

**💬 31 🔁 149 ❤️ 1.6K 👁️ 252.7K **

▶ Play video

FxTwitter · Dec 31, 2025, 2:16 PM

[pearl burrow]

https://x.com/i/status/2013745864171233686

Krissi! ⛄❄️ (@krissibarks)

IF BOTH CAITLYN AND VI AREN'T ACTIVE FIGHTERS ON THE NEW PILTOVER STAGE, THEY'RE IN THE BACKGROUND ON A DATE EATING CUPCAKES!!!! THIS IS SO CUTE!!!!

X · Jan 20, 2026, 10:50 PM

[paper notch]

https://vxtwitter.com/HomeDepotemkin/status/2013811746255802834

Home Depotemkin 🔜 Frosty Faustings (@HomeDepotemkin)

WELCOME BACK GIGANTER KAI I MISSED YOU

▶ Play video

vxTwitter / fixvx · Jan 21, 2026, 3:11 AM

[worthy crystal]

@small furnace jam combos are so fun to just do

If only her 236p wasn’t whack as fuck in +r

[small furnace]

jam is just like that. for freaks

[worthy crystal]

What’s wrong with freaks

Also I think this characters frame data would make a zoomer explode

[small furnace]

oh fr

even in xrd

[shrewd furnace]

I love freaks

But I love my darling faust even more

||yes I’m cringe ||

[worthy crystal]

Lowk especially in xrd

Some of her data in that game is even more juiced

5k is 4f +2 in xrd

And a low

And 5h too

Also best 2d in the game

That type of character should not have buttons that do all that

[late frost]

https://youtu.be/i1fqbyMXt1Y

[small furnace]

on the contrary

just gut her range

peak gorilla gameplay and dying to axl and dizzy is funny

[late frost]

@round creek

@cosmic forge

[round creek]

Oh he has some fucking sauce

ALSO WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY GOT JAM PROJECT TO DO HIS THEME

IS THAT FUCKING ONE WINGED ANGEL

Fuck I might actually be inclined to play SF6 lmao

[late frost]

man hit the V-trigger like this was SFV

[round creek]

They deadass fucking had Kenny Omega cosplay this man

And then went "hey can we give him one of your moves by the way"

[late frost]

he's got this really interesting mix of what feels really greco-roman shoot and wildly overperformative pro wrestling

[round creek]

I will say his theme feels

odd

Like I question if getting JAM to do his theme may have been a thing from before his storyline was decided

[late frost]

yeah it's not very heel or NYC

[round creek]

This sounds like face music to a comical degree

[late frost]

Apparently there's a Tanahashi reference in the song? So said a YT comment

[round creek]

icic

[late frost]

shit what do you call that underhook into like a brain buster he does

[paper notch]

???????

How

Why

[late frost]

at like 1:37

also the cupped hand to the ears he does
could be a Hogan reference

[round creek]

Fuck I cannot remember

It is really cute seeing them directly pay homage to Kenny for his work both as a wrestler and in SF as his career winds down though

His Ult is doing Kenny's taunt and then One Winged Angel, that's a big bloody shout

[round creek]

Wait isn't this just an Implant DDT

Aka the thing Moxley does

[late frost]

oh
Apparently Kenny did the mocap for the One-Winged Angel

[round creek]

Oh no not quite, Implant is like a spinout arm scissor version

[round creek]

That's rad

[late frost]

he does have an implant DDT I think
but not at that timestamp

also that looks way too high angle for a DDT
That's like piledriver or brainbuster verticality

[round creek]

The closest I've found is literally something called

A double underhook brainbuster

And even the two people I can find doing it both hook the arms

[late frost]

well uh
that is I guess what the move looks like

[round creek]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av8aNeF5XPQ

Other clip is just someone doing it less vertical and by proxy less close

I cannot find something like this with the legs hooked like that

Oh wait I got lost in the sauce for a second

Yeah no it's this

As far as I can tell this move doesn't have a name beyond the exact description

[late frost]

Looks very cool
Probably takes a lot of help to perform though
so it's not anyone finisher

[round creek]

This is the kind of shit someone would bust out in OVW once, people would chant for it for years, they'd go to bust it out on the main roster for a pop and they'd horrifically injure themselves or their opponent

[late frost]

I guess given how Alex finishes it
it's more of an underhook powerbomb with a turnaround

similar to the Spinning Sitout Powerbomb Piledriver

Also
March 17 release date

[wicked quarry]

That did strike me as odd too

Its like

This shit sounds like a Kamen Rider theme

You dont get heel from that

[vivid furnace]

this is sick

i know little to nothing about wrasslin but damn

i do know enough to agree on the music tho

it sounds like ggst music

very interested in what they'll do with ingrid now

he's got like fourteen grab animations

[late frost]

apparently the blog says he has eleven (11) followups from his command dash

[vivid furnace]

god DAMN

[gaunt cloud]

Did alex become a mecha pilot in the timeframe between sf3 and 6 wtf

[cosmic forge]

he's a heel now?

[late frost]

Yeah

[cosmic forge]

bruh

apparently he's motion now

charge characters found dead in back alley in boston

[shrewd furnace]

Good

I don’t know anyone who actually prefers characters to be charge based

In fact, I’ve seen more people stop playing a character because they’re charge

[vivid furnace]

idk im slowly getting used to charge inputs

ive been messing around wifh chun li n hulk in umvc3, as well as a lil guile in sf6 when i feel like waiting 10-20 minutes for a match

[faint ice]

criinge

It was cringe when axl lost it and it's cringe now

why aren't we letting characters be different from eachother

bison is getting closer and closer to full motion ngl

[round creek]

At least Guile is still charge

[vivid furnace]

dw when guile gets added to cotw boom will be qcf and flash kick will be dp

[faint ice]

cotw is good with inputs

[worthy crystal]

Cotw has a charge character anyways

Not like that game is allergic to inputs

[vivid furnace]

didnt they make chun li's projectile a qcf or something

yea kikokens a qcf when its a charge input in sf6

for no discernable reason since they already HAVE charge input characters and sbk is still charge too

a truly baffling decision imma keep it a buck

[worthy crystal]

Caitlyn is so cool my restand mixup looping queen @faint ice

[wicked quarry]

Is she actually a mixup character?

[worthy crystal]

It’s a tag fighter everyone can be a mixup character

Restands are very strong tools for enforcing them in general

[faint ice]

she looks so hard to use in scrambles

how are u boxing with ekko

[faint ice]

she also enforces oki

[late frost]

https://youtu.be/nu4pDfXRsMA

[cosmic forge]

The most face music for a heel

[worthy crystal]

I just don’t lose neutral

[pearl zodiac]

playing cf with new friend group

popping off as jin

[worthy crystal]

@small furnace Johnny so fun I almost wanna pick up +r again 💔

[small furnace]

johnny is so fun yea

i get it

[worthy crystal]

The actual issue is xrd muscle memory

Why the fuck did they make mist finer a qcb in that game

[shrewd furnace]

oh yeah i remember being confused by that too after i played kohaku for so long lmao

[small furnace]

so weird of a choice i remember johnny mains cried about it

[worthy crystal]

I can’t blame them

[pearl zodiac]

cake we should play CF I'm learning Lambda and Amane

I've gotten a lot more comfortable with playing more characters I'm playing Jin Ragna Lambda Amane Makoto

[worthy crystal]

Just let me know little one

[pearl zodiac]

waow

I thought you hated me

[worthy crystal]

Why

[pearl zodiac]

we don't play anymore...

[worthy crystal]

You don’t ask me to???

[pearl zodiac]

sigh

[worthy crystal]

@pearl zodiac gaming?

[pearl zodiac]

I'm busy today we're dealing with a snowstorm all day

kill me

[worthy crystal]

[worthy crystal]

@faint ice arcsys should make a helsing fg

[faint ice]

As a hellsing enjoyer that's like 10 characters no

[worthy crystal]

Good enough idk

Atla is gonna have 8 isn’t it

And invincible doesn’t have that many either

[faint ice]

But atla could have 30 if it wanted

[worthy crystal]

Sigh

I only watched the old helsing are there more people in the remake

[faint ice]

Idr the differences anymore

[worthy crystal]

I’m pretty sure there are some new ones in ultimate

Isnt that where the gun lady is from

Idk it would just be cool

[faint ice]

I can definitely visualise it

[worthy crystal]

I miss adapting old anime into fgs

Bleach was so close but bag was fumbled

[faint ice]

The budget got too high, and 2d is dead

Its nen impact or nothing

[worthy crystal]

2d will never die

[faint ice]

I heard bleach was almost 3d

[worthy crystal]

Wdym

[faint ice]

Like soul cal similar

[worthy crystal]

I mean it’s pretty close

[faint ice]

I feel like actual bleach soul cal would pop off no

[worthy crystal]

It’s like if Tekken and samsho had a baby

People hate soul cal mechanics

Soul cal players hate soul cal mechanics

I just hope avatar makes 10 trillion dollars so they start making fgs like that again

[shrewd furnace]

Helsing fg would be great but would need so many crossovers

[faint ice]

[cosmic forge]

Arcsys should make a Dragon Ball fighting game

[vivid furnace]

unthinkable

it'd never work

[vivid furnace]

https://fixupx.com/thencsmaster/status/2015434843153182821

speaking of

TheNCSmaster (@TheNCSmaster)

*Moro finally getting animated*
︀︀
︀︀Dragon Ball FighterZ in 2030:

**💬 38 🔁 2.3K ❤️ 33.8K 👁️ 312.0K **

FixupX · Jan 25, 2026, 2:41 PM

id love to see dbfz get support in 2030 but that also means no dbfz 2

[small furnace]

idt they need a 2nd dbfz if they've been keeping up with even a bit of support

[late frost]

https://youtu.be/a9lcx6hTCHc

sike
real Alex theme

first character to get a main theme that is a remix of a previous theme

@round creek @cosmic forge

https://www.streetfighter.com/6/character/alex

A young wrestler considered to be the next big thing. He debuted with his adoptive father Tom as his trainer, but was quickly made a heel due to his perceived surliness.

really said in canon popular reaction to him was "no way this guy makes it as a protag"

lot of people seeing his line from the trailer "I'm used to being hated" as a nod to his real life unpopularity in III and V

6'5" 245 lb btw

[vivid furnace]

honestly real though

if they keep supporting it consistently a dbfz 2 might not be needed

[round creek]

I was literally thinking earlier today about a Jazzy NYC remix

Hell yeah

oh it's so crisp

[languid cradle]

https://youtu.be/yZbexxHip4w terrible additions ☹️

Invincible vs lock in please

[worthy crystal]

I mean it’s getting support in 2026 we’re not far off

[worthy crystal]

I think a gbvsr situation isn’t entirely unreasonable

[languid cradle]

That would be a good idea 👍 so we don’t gotta sit through 20 versions of goku again

[worthy crystal]

You would still be sitting through 20 versions of goku

Gbvsr/unisys were basically just really really big patches for the game

At least compared to the changes we got in the same time frame with Tekken/Sf etc

[pearl zodiac]

DBZ is almost exclusively Goku and maybe Vegeta doing things sometimes there's no way it's anything but 20 gokus

[pearl burrow]

Don't forget the Androids!!!

[worthy crystal]

Pretty sure people want more androids in dbfz idk

Personally I’d fuck heavy w incomplete cell

[vivid furnace]

i want android 13. need my trucker hat boy

[pearl zodiac]

https://fixupx.com/WSC_BBCF/status/2015578643301343345

World Serpent Championship (@WSC_BBCF)

Blazblue Central Fiction is a main game for all 3 of the biggest tournaments in the United States!
︀︀
︀︀WE ARE SO BACK!

**💬 4 🔁 162 ❤️ 979 👁️ 27.1K **

FixupX · Jan 26, 2026, 12:12 AM

I've never seen a game with this run in my lifetime

[languid cradle]

I meant like re releasing them

Since they would already be in the game on launch

So it’s less likely to take up dlc

[languid cradle]

https://x.com/streetfighter/status/2016315380201836984?s=46

Street Fighter (@StreetFighter)

[Notice]
In the Alex Update on March 17, we plan to implement battle balance adjustments for all characters.

Since Alex and the overall battle balance are still currently in development, please note that the Alex demo version at Taipei Game Show and SFL JP Grand Finals does not

X · Jan 28, 2026, 1:00 AM

Cinema

[vivid furnace]

please shake the game up a bit

dont nerf any of my mains tho

and please, please, PLEASE shatter mai's fucking everything.

take her and put her in one of those industrial grinders you see people put engines in n shit

[cosmic forge]

imagine if they buffed a lily move lmao

[faint ice]

why not

but also I didnt even realize

alex is in march???

halfway through march lmao they have to figure out what they're doing

[worthy crystal]

They said early spring

Technically that’s very late winter but the character release schedule is so whack

[pearl zodiac]

just saw a hibiki go on a generational run in loser's bracket and tear down several high tiers to win it all

I gotta play this character

[worthy crystal]

@pearl zodiac gamer?

[faint ice]

I should give another cf character a go at some point

[pearl zodiac]

I can play after my monthly match

[pearl zodiac]

how do I not notice these messages are sent at 10 in the morning I am a bum

[worthy crystal]

Play?

[pearl zodiac]

sure

are we blazblueing or personaing

[worthy crystal]

Blabue

Unless you wanna persona

Idc

[pearl zodiac]

I'm so rusty at persona so bb

[worthy crystal]

What music should I listen to

[worthy crystal]

steam://joinlobby/586140/109775242297825471/76561199155971047

[pearl zodiac]

I'm gonna listen to mitski

[worthy crystal]

Well I was considering but

I also thought ayesha erotica would be a good choice

Currently listening to pearl

@small furnace professional opinion

[pearl zodiac]

interesting

[worthy crystal]

Ayesha Erotica or Mitski for blazbluing

[small furnace]

ayesha erotica would be a better choice

fr

[worthy crystal]

True…

Daba Dee you’re yellow

Damn I still got double snaps on me

That’s 8 year old muscle memory

This is actually a bottom 5 matchup in the game I’m pretty sure

[pearl zodiac]

dinner brb

[worthy crystal]

Holy

[pearl zodiac]

back

[worthy crystal]

Why did I pick this color

Why did I do this

[pearl zodiac]

back to sad lesbian music

even the great cake whiffs microdash 5b...

[worthy crystal]

I hate not having a dp

[pearl zodiac]

just hazama things sigh

[worthy crystal]

This characters combos are so juiced

If only I could do them

Ok I did one of the cool ones

What if

[pearl zodiac]

alright that's enough for me today

[worthy crystal]

Hold on look at my ecclesia color

3 more

[pearl zodiac]

sigh

[worthy crystal]

I need bed

I sleep 4 hour today

No caffeine

[pearl zodiac]

war criminal roster

[worthy crystal]

I can show u war criminal

Punish super with throw 💔

[pearl zodiac]

I panicked

[worthy crystal]

Anyways I actually hit the sick nasty and then u blocked it???

Insane

Actual triple fake out

[pearl zodiac]

COME ON

[worthy crystal]

Anyways this is last one

I waited this entire set

[pearl zodiac]

you could've just played litchi from the start that would've been alright

[worthy crystal]

I’m trying to learn Rachel actually

[pearl zodiac]

I'm so sad that a lot of hibiki's drive stuff is fake as hell

[worthy crystal]

This characters OD is actually so broken but nobody knows how to use it

It’s crazy

ggs though

[pearl zodiac]

ggs

disappointed in my performance today but I won a game as jin

[worthy crystal]

Don’t beat urself up I’ve been playing the game longer than you’ve known its existed

[pearl zodiac]

I knew it existed back in 2009 when ragna was in a death battle

kid

[worthy crystal]

I played CT.

[pearl zodiac]

problematic knowledge gap rivalry

if you ever pick up carl I'm never playing with you again (half-joking)

[worthy crystal]

I don’t play puppet characters

If I had the hands for it I would play relius but he’s really hard

[pearl zodiac]

fair enough

the mitski helped me feel better about facing war criminals

[pearl zodiac]

crazy how wrong this vid was

[cosmic forge]

Which Hibiki do you mean?

Hibiki, Hibiki, or Hibiki?

[pearl zodiac]

well first of all that image of Hibiki Kohaku is from the BlazBlue gacha Dark War not Centralfiction

second the general topic was about BB

[cosmic forge]

it was the first one on images and i don’t play blazblue i’m sorry :c

[pearl zodiac]

https://tenor.com/view/hibiki-kohaku-bbcf-blazblue-mtcrabbit-gif-1455439260347547546

[cosmic forge]

@late frost WAIT

Am I stupid or do JP’s ghosts do Q’s charge punch

[shrewd furnace]

Kohaku?

https://tenor.com/view/kohaku-melty-blood-tsukihime-gif-24740428

[late frost]

I've never made the connection
but I also haven't thought to try

[gaunt cloud]

Correct!

[cosmic forge]

which one is correct

[gaunt cloud]

Latter

[cosmic forge]

So like what are the implications there

[shrewd furnace]

You should flip the 2 in an edit because it’d be funny

[gaunt cloud]

We still havent even figured out what G's deal was

[cosmic forge]

Sure

But afaik he was totally unrelated to Shadaloo

So it’s weird that there’s some Q stuff with JP

[late frost]

there's allegedly a leak for the next SF6 season
but the guy who posted it also redacted it because he said it was untrustworthy

[shrewd furnace]

I can make an untrustworthy leak too, Sol Badguy in SF6

[cosmic forge]

Fuck it what was the leak

[late frost]

Vega (Claw)
Makoto
Menat
Q

[cosmic forge]

Would be peak but impossible

You see, if they release Vega as DLC, they’re obligated to make him somewhat good

and that would contradict the Street Fighter law that Vega must be hot trash to pay for his SF2 crimes

[late frost]

apparently
the original poster thought he heard it from a guy that had previously made correct leaks
but then it turns out it was not
but but some other people claim they've heard the same names

[shrewd furnace]

If they make Vega any amount of good people will riot

Actually nah let’s make him have his SFST moveset

I’m fully on board now

[vivid furnace]

makoto PLEAAASE

anyways i always thought it was that G becomes Q judging by the similarity between their movesets

i mean, we've no idea for sure

but the vibe i always got was that G gets severely injured, wears that metal suit Q does, and loses his mind in some way, shape, or form

[cosmic forge]

Wait

Scissor kicks is a motion?

That sounds fucking awful

[vivid furnace]

https://fxtwitter.com/i/status/2018063613861261407

🌙⭐️petalwave~🌙⭐️@FROSTYS (@petalwave)

aged like milk

Quoting Frosty Faustings (@FrostyFaustings)
︀
Iykyk

**💬 5 🔁 38 ❤️ 886 👁️ 55.1K **

FxTwitter · Feb 1, 2026, 8:47 PM

wtf is going on at frosty faustings

[pearl burrow]

https://fixvx.com/pareidalia/status/2018316286216884507

scissor sister ✧₊⁺ (@pareidalia)

sandalphon: my subordinates mock me and hardly ever listen to me, i wonder if it's a communication or trust issue

ilsa: beat the shit out of them

QRT: gbvs_official
Battle Intro Preview: Ilsa 🔫 vs. Sandalphon 🪽

Ilsa joins the #GBVSR roster in the Ver 2.50 update on Feb 10!

▶ Play video

vxTwitter / fixvx · Feb 2, 2026, 1:31 PM

[vivid furnace]

https://fixupx.com/chonmalu_gg/status/2018218829386764388

Chonmalu/ちょんまる@A.K.I.使い (@Chonmalu_gg)

STREET FIGHTER 6 最高の瞬間２０２６
︀︀
︀︀#StreetFighter6
︀︀#スト６

**💬 11 🔁 269 ❤️ 2.2K 👁️ 253.5K **

▶ Play video

FixupX · Feb 2, 2026, 7:04 AM

we call this overloading the mental stack

[cosmic forge]

@vivid furnace god i have been dipping into sf4 lore since i skipped it

never forget that rufus pulled her

rufus

[shrewd furnace]

welcome to america

[pearl zodiac]

I was struggling with Hibiki combos but then I found out that the Dustloop page for Hibiki is a complete and utter travesty and not to be trusted

[vivid furnace]

https://fixupx.com/i/status/2018700474187227206

Mommy Shuba (@fucker264)

The balancing is fucked up ngl

**💬 12 🔁 31 ❤️ 437 👁️ 25.2K **

FixupX · Feb 3, 2026, 2:57 PM

wtf is going on in strive

i know its a leffen tierlist but like this seems pretty consistent with what ive heard from just general osmosis

[languid cradle]

https://x.com/afgcnews/status/2018149970994425912?s=46

Anime FGC News (@AFGCNews)

Congratulations to our 16 Guilty Gear Strive Arc World Tour 2025/2026 Finalists! We will see you all in March! #AWT25_26

X · Feb 2, 2026, 2:30 AM

[faint ice]

its a funny joke post

[worthy crystal]

It’s a joke post because aba isn’t actually that good

[pearl zodiac]

https://tenor.com/view/blazblue-mai-natsume-truth-nuke-gif-9743731028336560160

I've discovered Mai

[shrewd furnace]

Congrats

Very fun character

[faint ice]

but what if she actually is 🤫

[vivid furnace]

i dont play ggst at all so i just went "eh yk what ive seen weirder"

[vivid furnace]

this looks more like what i was expecting

[worthy crystal]

She’s better than people would have you believe but worse than people would have u believe

[gaunt cloud]

Problem with aba is that she's pretty much designated as a counterpick char but with a higher skill floor than average

[faint ice]

I even disagree with this t b h

but it's not that important

[mellow palm]

Chat

Yall think they’re gonna make a dc ko game

Instead of injustice 3

[gaunt cloud]

Has nrs ever made a tag fighter before?

[worthy crystal]

Ppl say this and it just isn’t really true idk

Ppl also said this about axl and it wasn’t really true for him either

Aba HC is no worse for her than Pot HC is for him and yet ppl don’t call pot a counterpick character or a matchup fisher

[worthy crystal]

@small furnace u like actually play +r so I just wanna ask but

Why is millia not considered more ups in that game

In xrd discourse has shifted to the point where millia top 3 is a semi common opinion

[small furnace]

i am a millia main and theres a trend...

its kind of downplaying

but also, match ups are

like yeah she has goated match uos

[worthy crystal]

Ok but everybody downplays insane in +r

[small furnace]

*ups

but u have to be like

[worthy crystal]

Does she have any bad MUs into top tiers

[small furnace]

good good

[worthy crystal]

I guess baiken

[small furnace]

baiken is bad always

[worthy crystal]

Not for jam smiley face

[small furnace]

but chipp and testa are both difficultish

and like

it isnt a case where they love playing millia either

[worthy crystal]

Inchresting

I thought chipp millia was 5/5

[small furnace]

but millia's side feels harder at equal skill level

it is

[worthy crystal]

Holy downplay

You’re the problem

[small furnace]

:]

[worthy crystal]

Anyways in xrd it’s very

Idk

If u have the hands she would theoretically prob be top 1

She has 1 really really tough MU (elphelt) but everyone else is generally 5/5 or like incredibly millia favored

They broke everybody’s ankles in xrd except for her

So she just runs circles around everyone

[small furnace]

no being fr yeah thats just the common consensus bc millia is decently hard to play well and some ppl see that as being say easier to play chipp for same reward u know

[worthy crystal]

I’m pretty sure she’s one of an extremely privileged who has like

A winning Johnny mu

[small furnace]

idk why xrd millia was buffed like that

esp when +r was the main game... surely arc sys knew she was busted

revelator further buffed her iirc

[worthy crystal]

It was complicated

[small furnace]

and she was already top 5 downplaying

[worthy crystal]

She was broken broken in sign

Then they made her actually really bad

When they gave her the new j.h

[small furnace]

idt she was truly bad

[worthy crystal]

I think she was

[small furnace]

just awk + ik my fellow millia mains are babies

[worthy crystal]

The character could not execute her gameplan if you pressed burst

Like camping pin actually meant she couldn’t play the game

If you had a way to anti air her j.h (admittedly not universally possible) then you could burst pin and run her to the other side of the screen and she couldn’t do juggles, couldn’t present air space, and couldn’t extend pressure or prevent you from doing anything committal on the ground

But in rev 2 they gave her bad moon KD and then in 2.1 they randomly decided to make her frame data even more juiced

So idk

[small furnace]

overcorrected for sure

[worthy crystal]

But I feel like +r millia is kind of just better in most ways and then ppl don’t rate her as highly

Stuff staying on hit is so gross

[small furnace]

yeah dont get it twisted

shes broken

but +r mains downplay and millia mains moreso

[worthy crystal]

Idk I feel like +r is just the downplay game

But I see ppl who say that like Faust or dizzy is better than millia and I just can’t comprehend

[small furnace]

dizzy is crazy

faust...? maybe

[worthy crystal]

No shot

I also have the opposite conundrum with Faust

Where that character seems so much more cracked in xrd than +r and ppl rate him way crazier

But maybe that’s outside looking in

[shrewd furnace]

Faust is one of the only characters i've seen where no one downplays him lol

mainly because he's always had someone on top when he was strong

[worthy crystal]

U haven’t looked hard enough

I was almost a Faust main btw could u imagine

[shrewd furnace]

he's downplayed by some people, sure, but not nearly as much as anyone else in the cast

[worthy crystal]

I liked his design so much I almost played an item toss character

[shrewd furnace]

you should play funny scalpel guy

i liked him so much i played him in dnd

[small furnace]

yes

[worthy crystal]

The actual reason I didn’t is because I hate characters who have to gamble on their pokes when they hit

That’s also why I never played venom even though he was very much a character I would’ve liked

Having a f.s that is half the screen and possibly one of the best single buttons in the game is nice but then when your options are all minus frames it feels whack as fuck

That’s also an issue I have with millia but fortunately she converts much easier and also her f.s is much less central to her gameplan

[pearl zodiac]

damn, Mai kinda complicated

[worthy crystal]

Yes and no

The greatest point of growth for a mai player is the realization that 5aaa 236b is the only combo you actually need

[pearl zodiac]

she has some really hard links it's kinda crazy

[worthy crystal]

Which ones

Most of the complicated stuff is very much accessorial

[pearl zodiac]

the 1 link pickups mainly

[worthy crystal]

Such as

Because I promise you need to learn none of those

[pearl zodiac]

5C after 236B when you're converting into the corner

[worthy crystal]

That is not a 1F link

Bb buffer means it’s 6 frames

(If you mash it after 236b it is extremely generous)

[pearl zodiac]

grr

I just want my high damage routes

[worthy crystal]

Optimization with mai does not matter that much

Especially when optimized midscreen routes are some of her most unstable unreliable and inconsistent combos

For a character who’s only so good because of how stable she is

The only stuff you actually have to remember is buttons into 236b midscreen, CH 2c/5c and 236b 5cca etc combos

Basically any other routing is generally just a flexing thing

And if you hear anybody talk about Kara flip block them and run in the opposite direction because that is the ultimate meme shit

[shrewd furnace]

Yeah Mai doesn’t need all that, there’s a reason why people don’t like her and it’s not because she’s flashy

[pearl zodiac]

it's because she's transgender

[shrewd furnace]

funny enough i know more mai players who didn't know that than those who do

yes, they don't read, how did you know

[pearl zodiac]

is mai considered a low-damage character

[shrewd furnace]

she's pretty fair

[worthy crystal]

Middle of the road

Midscreen below average in the corner avg/above

Damage is not what makes Mai good

[pearl zodiac]

what makes her good then

[worthy crystal]

Literally everything else

[pearl zodiac]

is it her tippers or the guard point on her stance

[worthy crystal]

Actually not those parts

She’s an incredibly straightforward character and the less you think about her kit the better you’ll do with her

[pearl zodiac]

what if I wanna plink dash with her like I was a marvel character

[shrewd furnace]

she's the perfect beginner character

[worthy crystal]

Her buttons are godlike both in neutral and pressure (5aa is +1) and flip is an incredibly unique defensive option that most characters have to specifically play around to call out

[shrewd furnace]

very strong and straightforward, with some ways to optimize but use your mind for other things

[worthy crystal]

Her drive makes it very hard both to zone her and rush her down

Her mobility is very strong and she’s good basically anywhere on screen at any point in the game

[shrewd furnace]

i would not recommend plink dashing (not really plinkdashing) with her, you're just wasting a decent amount of what makes her so good

that being said it is pretty fun to do

[worthy crystal]

People found incredibly complex tech with her that would make her in theory unbelievably strong but nobody uses it and she still performs very well in tournaments

[shrewd furnace]

what tech was it again?

[worthy crystal]

Kara flip

A bunch of her random normals have technically only 4f recovery

Jump cancel normal > cancel jump startup into flip > flip into barrier

If u have perfect hands it lets her do an infinite block string/ hit 5c 30 times and do 7k damage

[shrewd furnace]

oh yeah the baka tech

or whatever it was called

[pearl zodiac]

sounds like the hardest thing in the world

but right now I'm just trying to memorize her buttons

[worthy crystal]

I believe it’s a 1F leniency cancel to flip (input parser only accepts 1 direction per frame) and then you have I believe 2f to cancel flip

It’s hard but not impossible

Just unreasonable to expect ppl to implement consistently and online

But the less u think w mai the better she does

[pearl zodiac]

I was just spamming C against a friend last night and did pretty well

but I think a lot of her combo theory is interesting like stance loops