With the first villain of Fighter Pack 2 set to arrive in Injustice 2 later this month, NetherRealm Studios will once again be hosting an Injustice 2 Watchtower Livestream dedicating to breaking down Aquaman’s arch-nemesis Black Manta.
During his official gameplay trailer reveal at the end of the GameStop Hometown Heroes finals, we saw that the aquatic fighter will be brimming with all sorts of gadgets and weaponry from his iconic black wetsuit, which grants him access to eye lasers, a jet pack for a Zatanna-esque float, shoulder-mounted rocket launchers, a teleport punch resembling Mortal Kombat‘s Sektor, his harpoon gun, explosives (that could potentially be a Gear ability), twin blades, and mechanical, extendable trident, which he uses as part of his super.
As usual, the stream will be taking place tomorrow at 3:00 PM Central Standard Time (1:00 PM PT) at https://www.twitch.tv/netherealm.
Black Manta will be released next Tuesday, September 12th, for owners of Fighter Pack 2 or the Ultimate Edition, with his standard release following a week later on September 19th. You can see the announcement tweet below.
For more on Black Manta, you can check out History Behind the Warrior’s look at the legendary rivalry between Manta and the King of Atlantis — Arthur Curry, better known as Aquaman — here. You can also check out the patch notes for the game’s recent October update here.
Las Vegas-based esports team InTheSkies is primarily known for their extremely powerful division of Tekken 7 players, including the likes of CuddleCore, CuteTricks, BC20FLY, Jackie Tran, Kane, Kawaii, Lil Majin, P. Ling, MYK, SourPiggy and YanFlip. However, they’ve recently begun to expand their reach further into the larger fighting game community, by making their first signings outside of the 3D realm.
First up, they’ve acquired Street Fighter V M. Bison player Richard “Pnoy” Clink, who’s coming off of a victory at Japonawa 2017, as well as a 5th place finish at West Coast Warzone 6, placing 2nd at Genesis 4, getting 17th at Combo Breaker, 25th at Evo, and, most recently, 3rd at 2GGC: SCR Saga. He is also ranked 81st on our SRK World Rankings for SFV.
Pinoy will also be picking up Tekken 7 as a secondary game alongside his teammates. On Twitter, Pnoy noted that it was now time to, “put in even more work at more events.”
But things don’t end there, as last week ITS announced they would also be signing one of the top American puppet players in Arc System Works games, Julian “Beautiful Dude” Franco. to represent them in BlazBlue: Central Fiction, Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2, and Tekken 7.
Known for his devastating pad-based Zato-1, Relius Clover and Ken Amada in BlazBlue, Guilty Gear and Persona 4 Arena Ultimax, Julian also gained some infamy in Tekken 7 circles earlier this year at Evo 2017, where he eliminated Cyclops Osaka’s Tanukana in Losers Round 1 of Pools 2-1 with his hopkick-happy Claudio.
He currently sits at 21st in our Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2 World Rankings, coming off of 3rd place showings at NCR and Texas Showdown 2017, getting 17th at CEO, 25th at Evo and 5th at the August 2017 edition of NorCal Dogfight. He’s also a frequent top 8 placer in Xrd at Wednesday Night Fights. As for BBCF, where he sits at 14th on our World Rankings, he also placed 3rd at NCR and Texas Showdown, before getting 7th at Combo Breaker and 13th at CEO. He will begin representing the team later this month at Southern California Regionals 2017. You view those announcement tweets below.
We here at Shoryuken would like to congratulate both of these players, as well as ITS on these new signings, and wish all parties involved the best in their future endeavors.
We’re less than two weeks away from the dawn of a New Age of Heroes with the release of Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite. As we’ve previously shared with you, Unequalled Media’s Tyrant and Maximilian were able to stop by the Capcom offices in the United Kingdom and Southern California to capture gameplay footage of the Gamescom build, featuring the entire 30-character roster. The build was also brought to last weekend’s Celtic Throwdown 2017, to give UK fans even more time with the unreleased title. In these matches we see the likes of Ghost Rider, Frank West, Dante, Nemesis, Firebrand, as well as newcomers like Mega Man X, Jedah Dohma, Ultron, and Gamora duking it out with various Infinity Stones. We also get to clearly hear more of the new character themes for these cast members, with classic theme remixes remaining for the Capcom side, while the Marvel cast boasts new themes with a more decidedly cinematic flair.
UM|Tyrant (Dante/Jedah) vs. Matt “The Street Writer” Edwards (Nemesis/Gamora)
UM|Tyrant (Arthur/Firebrand) vs. Matt “The Street Writer” Edwards (Ghost Rider/Jedah)
Method|Packz (Ultron/Dormammu) vs. UM|Tyrant (Dante/Frank West)
Finally, Maximilian brings us more footage of his battles with Capcom USA developers in SoCal, featuring characters like Jedah, Dormammu, Mega Man X, Strider Hiryu, Firebrand, Ghost Rider, Hawkeye, Morrigan, Arthur, Ryu, Iron Man and Captain America.
Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite will be released on September 19th in North America and Europe on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Steam PC, with a Japanese release following on September 21st.
With Bandai Namco Entertainment’s and Arc System Work’s Dragon Ball FighterZ set for a February 2018 release, Bandai Namco Entertainment Europe looks to keep the hype train rolling by releasing brief character introduction videos on each and every member of the game’s roster — starting with the iconic pure-blooded Saiyan duo of Goku and Vegeta.
These brief character trailers serve to highlight each character’s Dragon Rush, as well as several of their super combos, intros and win poses; similar to the trailers released for Future Trunks, and Goku and Vegeta’s Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan forms. You can see both videos below.
This past weekend saw the fourth installment of the Dreamoliton Derby event in Munich, Germany. Though Tekken 7 was the primary focus of competition, due to being a Master Event on the 2017 Tekken World Tour, the Street Fighter V tournament also featured some high stakes. Though not a part of the 2017 Capcom Pro Tour Season, the top two placers would qualify for a ZOWIE Fighter event set to be held later this year. The Champion of Guilty Gear Xrd REV 2 would also receive free entry into Revolution 2017 in London, England, as part of the Road to Revolution. Tournaments were also held in Guilty Gear XX Accent Core +R, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Injustice 2 and more.
The Tekken World Tour rolled on this past weekend, as many of the best players descended upon Tokyo, Japan for a Master Event with over 140 participants. With the likes of Echo Fox’s Saint, Yamasa’s Nobi, Yuu and Take, Knee, NOROMA, Chanel, Kkokkoma, KuroKuro, Pekos, PBE|AK, Cyclops Osaka’s Tanuka, LiliMan, and more in attendance, it was guaranteed to be a fierce battle to determine the King of Iron Fist.
The next stop on the Tekken World Tour will be the Let’s Play Live Offline Qualifier, a Challenger event in Auckland, New Zealand this Saturday, September 9th.
Hot off the heels of East Coast Throwdown — and with the release of Fighter Pack 2’s Black Manta rapidly approaching — NetherRealm Studios has released the September update (version 1.08) for Injustice 2.
Mentioned in the last Watchtower Livestream, this update introduces Ranked sets, allowing for players to rematch their opponents in a 3-out-of-5 tournament setting, similar to Street Fighter V, as they try to claim their place on the newly-reset Leaderboards. Player Matches have now been split into “Versus” and “Competitive Versus,” along with a new Competitive King of the Hill, allowing players who tend to prefer longer sets with friends to now have that opportunity without having to worry about falling prey to gear users with immensely powerful customized characters.
There are also two new Shaders for the entire cast, along with the introduction of a new gear rarity level — Legendary — on top of significantly improved sorting and Mother Box opening options, to further streamline the customization process for your favorite heroes and villains.
A myriad of bug fixes were also implemented, along with some significant balance changes for DLC characters Sub-Zero and Starfire. The Lin Kuei Grandmaster’s Killing Blow (3,3) string will no longer whiff on crouching foes, and he can now link his Low Chop (D1) into his Ice Shatter (DB1), due to increased Hit and Cancel Advantage. Meanwhile, the Tamaranean Princess, who has yet to see competitive play, has received several damage nerfs and can no longer link her Side Scratch (D1) into her Meter Burn Star Dust, due to a reduction in Cancel Advantage. Big Bodies, like Bane and Swamp Thing have also seen a 1% damage increase to most of their Specials, due to them now being correctly adjusted by the Ability Stat in the last patch. Aquaman will also now be doing more damage off of his regular and Meter Burn versions of Trident Scoop, due to the original scaling increase being larger than intended. You can view the full patch notes for yourself below.
General Gameplay fixes
General stability and Online stability improvements
Move list corrections and improvements to AI logic
Online Ranked Match has been replaced with Ranked set which are first to 3 wins
Player Match and Private Match can now be searched with Competitive Mode on
From within an online lobby room you can now challenge player to 1v1 and KOTH matches with Competitive Mode on
Fixed a rare issue where placing a wager during Clash with high latency on some controller configurations could result in the wrong bet being used
Added Xbox Arena support for User Generated Tournaments on Xbox One
Player can now equip gear dropped after a match or from a Mother Box to that character’s current default loadout
Gear can now be bulk selected in a characters inventory screen with simple and advanced filters
Gear can marked as favorite which prevents it from being sold or deleted
Fixed many special moves being affected by the strength attribute instead of the ability attribute. Swamp Thing and Bane have had some damage increases noted below to compensate for this
Fix for some character select and character viewer animations on premier skins
Fixes to visual effects priority with Scarecrow’s & Cyborg’s supermoves
Fixed audio issues with several attacks being interrupted
Multiverse – fix for Swamp Thing’s sidekick being able to make a character unresponsive if interrupted with specific timing
Several Gear Abilities with Down, Down inputs that were still not changed to require a more precise input when buffered now do so
Fixed an issue which was preventing Starfire gear abilities from dropping from Mother Boxes and Multiverse Event rewards
Completion requirements have been reduced for all Guild Mulltiverse tiers
AI Loadouts can now be used in Guild Multiverse events
Stage Specific Fixes
Arkham Asylum – Fix for toilet interaction having a displaced hit region when interrupted in certain circumstances
Atlantis – Bug fix for interrupting wall run interaction under certain circumstances preventing it from being used again
Batcave – Fixed a bug causing the hit region of the motorcycle interaction to linger after being interrupted by certain attacks
Batcave – Fix for rare situation where players could use a teleport move to be outside the boundaries of the stage
Character Specific Fixes
Aquaman – Fixed a bug causing combo damage scaling on Trident Scoop and Trident Scoop MB to be larger than expected
Aquaman – Fixed a rare issue that could cause Aquaman’s trident to be misaligned after hitting an opponent with Deep Sea (Towards + Medium, Light + Hard)
Atrocitus – Fixed rare bug that could cause Brute Slam (Down + Hard) to have longer than normal recovery when hitting Flash while he has Speed Zone character power active
Bane – Heavy Hammer (Light, Light, Medium, Down) and Fist Slam (Towards + Medium, Down) recovery on hit increased by 2
Bane – Increased Base damage on several special moves by 1 to compensate for them being now being correctly adjusted by the Ability stat
Batman – Fixed a rare bug that could case Batman’s Flying Kick follow-up from Straight Grapple to sometimes go in the wrong direction
Black Canary – When Front Handspring is interrupted by Firestorm’s Molten Trap, he will no longer then sometimes pass through Black Canary while immediately following up with Heat Wave (Away + Hard)
Blue Beetle – Fixed issues with hit regions while character power is active if you attack immediately following a Roll Escape
Brainiac – Fixed a bug that allowed Tendril Smash MeterBurn (Towards + Hard, MB) to be air escaped
Brainiac – Fixed a bug that prevented Beta Strike’s hit region to be increased while opponent is in a combo
Brainiac – Fixed bug causing Beta Strike and Beta Bomb blockstun and hitstun being shorter than expected if it collides with the opponent immediately following a blocked Pneumenoid Dive
Catwoman – After hitting with Cat Dash and Cat Dash MeterBurn Catwoman can no longer sometimes forward dash through the opponent
Catwoman – Cat Stance now requires a more precise input when buffered
Cyborg – Fixed the ability to perform Back/Forward grapple as a 2in1 cancel while Input Shortcuts are turned off in controller options
Deadshot – Fix a bug which could result in a lingering empty clip from his end of round win animation
Firestorm – Missing with (Air) Fusion Charge then immediately performing Heat Wave (Away + Hard) will no longer sometimes cause Firestorm to pass through his opponent
Green Arrow – Fixed bug that caused Green Arrow to be briefly immune to high attacks if he started Take Aim character power while crouching and immediately jumped while holding the arrow
Green Arrow – Fixed rare issue that would cause Green Arrow’s bow to be misaligned after missing with Stinger
Harley Quinn – Fix for hyenas summoned from her character power appearing in the wrong position in certain circumstances
Joker – Rolling Gas can no longer be MeterBurned after it is destroyed by things such as Sub-Zero’s Ice Klone and Captain Cold’s Death-cicle MeterBurn which would result is wasted super meter
Red Hood – Lethal Lunge MeterBurn while Hidden Explosive Gear Ability is equipped now does 8 less base damage
Red Hood – Akimbo Blaze & Akimbo Blaze MeterBurn Gear Ability now does 3 less base damage
Robin – Fixed rare issue with Assassin Strike causing the hit animation to not work properly if hitting on the last active frame
Robin – Fixed hit FX sometimes appearing in the wrong location on many sword attacks
Scarecrow – Fixed a bug that caused Fear Flame to fully charge Scarecrow’s character power meter when colliding with certain projectiles
Starfire – Reduced the base damage of My Little Bumgorf (Light, Light), Grishnik Got Your Tongue? (Medium, Light), and Call Your Knorfka? (Medium, Hard) by 1
Starfire – Reduced the base damage of Star Strikes (Away + Medium) by 2
Starfire – Increased combo damage scaling when canceling into Starbolt character power
Starfire – Side Scratch (Down + Light) has 2 less cancel advantage
Starfire – Burning Desire & Shooting Star base damage reduced by 1
Starfire – Reduced base damage of Star Dust by 2 and Star Dust MeterBurn by 1
Starfire – Tamaranean Charge is now airborne on frame 4
Starfire – Star Slam gear ability can now be directed close
Starfire – Fixed a bug which could cause some lingering visual FX after end of round win animation
Starfire – Fixed some hair clipping issues
Sub-Zero – Function-Kneeing Properly (Hard) has its hit region adjusted, has 10 less frames of recovery on hit/block/miss, 10 less frames of blockstun, and slightly less pushback on block
Sub-Zero – Killing Blow (Hard, Hard) had its hitregion adjusted
Sub-Zero – Low Chop (Down + Light) has 1 more frame of cancel advantage, 2 more frames of recovery, and has 1 more hit advantage
Sub-Zero – Fixed rare issue where several attacks when pushing an opponent into Ice Klone which would cause it to have slightly reduced blockstun
Supergirl – (Air) Heat Vision Gear Ability will no longer sometimes change impact location after destroying Sub-Zero’s Ice Klone
Superman – Fixed some visual FX being the wrong color when using Bizarro skin
Swamp Thing – Increased Base damage on several special moves by 1 to compensate for them being now being correctly adjusted by the Ability stat
Will update with full notes if/once they’re released.
What are your thoughts on these patch changes? Are you excited about the addition of Ranked sets, Competitive Player Matches and Legendary gear? Give us your thoughts in the comments.
With the recent release of the Ultimates Monster Pack, the support for Iron Galaxy’s Killer Instinct continues with the release of the title’s next large balance update, version 3.9. Rukari notes that, though characters such as Fulgore, Kan-Ra, Spinal and Sadira have been a difficult challenge to balance over the years, they feel that after this patch the game will be in a pretty satisfactory place in terms of balance. This will likely being the game’s last big balance update for the foreseeable future. It was also mentioned that details about the long-awaited Steam version of KI will be released soon, and that the team is looking for it to drop within the coming weeks, rather than months. (The Killer Instinct comic book will also begin releasing in September.)
As is customary with new character releases, Eagle is the subject of the most changes, with this being his initial set of modifications following his arrival to the roster. He’ll be losing his corner Arrow Rain loop, due to their now reduced hitstun, bird attacks and commands have been adjusted to remove any safe Counter Breaker attempts he once had, as well as being able to use the bird to combo off of Throw Techs. Many other fighters have seen adjustments to their damage and frame data as well. You can see the full list, as well as a video of Rukari narrating some of the more notable changes, below.
System Changes:
Fixed an issue preventing Opener -> Instinct Cancel -> Ultra from working if the move you performed had a non-hitting “landing” (recovery) sequence your character is forced into immediately on hit. Jago Wind Kick.
Fixed an issue that caused damage from some throws to not reset the potential damage healing process as expected.
Fixed an issue that could cause a reset into an opener attack to sometimes have followup manuals be unbreakable.
Fixed an issue that could cause your gravity to get stuck at a lower value if your opponent was hit out of the early frames of a ground-to-air Counter Breaker attempt.
Thunder:
Shortened the window for inputting an Ultimate after starting Thunder’s Ultra to avoid a situation in which the characters could become misaligned.
Sadira:
[Sadira was a very strong character in both Season 1 and Season 2, and throughout Season 3 we tried to increase her fun factor without making her too overwhelming. While we are happy with where her fun factor ended up, we saw the need for her to hit just a bit harder in some key areas in order to help her compete with the current cast.]
Instinct Webs no longer gain a first hit damage bonus.
Instinct Web damage raised 500% (from 2 to 10)
Instinct Webs now deal 1 chip damage (was 0) [These three changes combine to give Sadira much higher damage from webs both upfront and in combos, without the upfront damage being overly high due to the first hit damage bonus.]
Web Cling (Damage) Ender damage increased by 25% [Sadira’s damage ender doesn’t hit much harder than her exchange ender, which gets her better setups, so we amped this one up a bit to make it more worth it]
Fixed a bug that let Sadira cancel early jump frames into auto doubles and linkers outside of instinct.
Fixed a bug that could cause Lv1 Blade Demon ender to drop in some situations.
Spinal:
[Spinal is difficult to adjust because of how strong his momentum can be. We noticed that many of his bad matchups include strong air priority characters, so we wanted to give him some slightly better ways to handle characters at awkward air angles without buffing his ground game.]
Jumping LP hitbox extended to cover more space above Spinal.
Jumping MP range extended to reach farther away from Spinal.
Jumping MP is now active for 2 additional frames.
Fulgore:
[Fulgore has been pretty difficult to balance. We’ve adjusted his rushdown, his zoning, and his instinct during Season 3 and he is still an extremely powerful character, which shows how tricky it is to find the sweet spot for him. Now that the dust has settled a bit, the team feels confident that Fulgore now has the weaknesses we intended him to have, but on the journey to this spot, we went a little far in a few areas. These buffs will not send Fulgore over the top again, but should help with some small quality of life aspects of his game.]
Raised Energy Bolt damage by 42% (from 7 to 10) [This gives him more zoning damage and more damage on his Energy Bolt into Teleport mixups]
Raised Light Cyber Uppercut damage 33% (from 15 to 20)
Raised Medium Cyber Uppercut damage 16% (from 12 to 14) [Usually, you’d expect the heavy version of a move to do the most damage, but in this case we wanted the reverse. The benefit of the light uppercut is the highest damage and most invulnerability, while the benefit of the heavy version is more potential damage left behind and multiple hits.]
Light and Medium Eye Lasers can now be Pip Cancelled into Energy Bolts. Heavy Eye Beam still cannot be. [This is a big buff to pip cancels and these versions of Eye Lasers, and as a result, his instinct mode as well.]
The minimum reactor spin speed has been increased slightly. It now takes about 10 seconds at the lowest speed to build one pip, instead of 12.5 seconds. [Fulgore’s weakness should be the odd way in which he gains meter. The old instinct mode gave him so much free meter per game that this weakness didn’t matter. Now that we have things functioning the way we want, we feel his default ‘slow’ meter gain is just a hair too low. Over the course of an average match, this should result in 3 to 5 more pips than you used to get.]
TJ Combo:
Reduced the combo breaker window on a successful Tremor by 4 frames. [The tremor moves have one of the largest breakable windows in the game, even after this change. This just tightens it up a bit.]
Kan Ra:
[Another character with a very complex moveset that has proven difficult to balance, especially due to how much he benefits from training mode experimentation. After watching Season 3 Kan-Ra players, we decided that he struggled just a bit too much up close, now that getting closer to him is slightly easier than it was in Season 2. We adjusted some frame data on his close normals that should allow him to fight back without having to always commit to a negative on block special move.]
Standing LK is now 0 on block (was -2) [This is a big change for Kan-Ra, as it lets him use his fastest normal to try to push enemies away from him with much less risk.]
Standing LP is now +1 on block (was -2)
Standing LP is now +1 on hit (was -1)
Fixed a bug causing standing LP to deal less hitstun on counterhit than normal
Crouching LP is now -1 on block (was -4)
Crouching LP is now 0 on hit (was -2)
Crouching MK is now -2 on block (was 0)
DownBack + MP range increased [We did a review of the rest of his frame data and attack boxes after changing standing LK to be 0 on block to make sure the rest of them made sense around that change. Slower normals are better on block or have increased range to compensate so you aren’t just pressing standing LK and nothing else.]
Wall Splat enders are now +23 (was +13), allowing new combos and setups, and making it easier to land them consistently on different sized opponents. [Some characters could not be thrown before recovering from a Wall Splat, so adding more time fixed this issue and made Kan-Ra’s options off of a Splat more versatile.]
Riptor:
Fixed an issue preventing Riptor from using her run forward or back to avoid Shin Hisako’s Creepy Hands.
Fixed a bug causing the final hit of Shoulder Charge Enders levels 2-4 to add 10 KV.
Fixed a bug causing close standing HP to deal less hitstun on counterhit.
Fixed a bug that caused crouching HP to cause a hard knockdown on juggled opponents.
Aganos:
Fixed an issue that could cause Payload and Ruin enders to fail if a wall already existed at just the right (wrong?) ranges.
Hisako:
Increased the range from which Hisako can trigger an Ultra. [Hisako’s ultra would not trigger off some of her far manuals, so we increased the range at which this is allowed to happen.]
Cinder:
Reduced the PD output of Inferno on block by 20%
Reduced the PD output of Shadow Inferno on block by 22% [Cinder has made great use of the PD/Breaker changes, and is in a good place overall. We wanted to reduce the PD he generates from his Inferno moves a bit to reduce the pressure on his opponents slightly, but we’ve left the PD on his Burnouts the same. He still won’t have any trouble generating Level 4 enders.]
Increased the range at which Cinder can trigger his Ultra.
Fixed an issue that could cause his throw to whiff its final hit against Mira in the corner.
Fixed an issue that could cause manuals after Pyrobomb explosions in some situations to be unbreakable.
Aria:
[Most players agree that Aria is incredibly strong in Season 3, but because she promotes so many interesting decisions on offense and defense, and because she can often be quite fragile, we didn’t want to adjust any of her most interesting mechanics. In this patch we touched on just one of the moves that seems to cause many characters trouble, while keeping the rest of her very strong gameplan intact.]
Reduced the range of Jumping MK
Reduced how far back Jumping MK pushes Aria
Reduced the blockstun from Jumping MK by 8 frames [This move is a key reason why Aria, in any body, can be extremely frustrating to fight against for a large part of the roster. This change weakens the move just enough that Aria players will need to be more thoughtful about when and where to use it.]
Both medium auto doubles now last 6 frames longer, making them more similar to the speeds of other medium auto doubles. [People complained for a long time about Aria’s Medium Punch Auto Double being very fast, but her Medium Kick one was just as fast. We’ve slowed them both slightly.]
Shadow Jago:
Dark Fury (Damage) ender damage increased by 20% [The damage on this ender wasn’t much higher than his hard knockdown and exchange enders, which both give him better setups. We’ve increased the damage to make this ender more worth it.]
Rash:
Fixed a bug causing his Exchange Ender to do the damage of his Splat Ender, and his Splat Ender to do the damage of his Exchange Ender. [Rash’s wall splat pressure is very strong, so this bug fix which slightly lowers wall splat damage to its intended value will help players survive the onslaught just a little bit longer.]
Fixed a bug that could cause the Lv2 and Lv3 Big Bad Boot enders to drop when cancelled late after a light auto double.
Fixed a bug causing auto doubles to fan the flames incorrectly when burned out by Cinder.
Fixed an issue causing Big Bad Boot to deal less damage than expected on counterhit.
Arbiter:
Fixed a bug that caused Arbiter to get cursed when parrying certain status-effect inducing attacks, and could let Jago heal with Instinct Endokukens even if Arbiter parried them.
Fixed a bug that caused the whiff version of Shadow Mercy’s Demise to not spawn its attack box. You may now be able to catch someone trying to jump over this now.
Extended the duration of the force block box on Medium, Heavy, and Shadow Truth Seeker to fix an issue preventing the Random Block option in training from being able to block this move.
Fixed an issue causing Jumping F+HK to push back farther on counterhit than expected, and deal less hitstun than expected.
Fixed an issue causing the counterhit versions of all Gunbutt attacks to deal less damage than expected.
Fixed an issue preventing Arbiter from Shadow Countering projectiles while shielded.
Mira:
[Our main change to Mira this patch has been to slightly adjust her control over the neutral by giving her slightly less access to meter, making decisions on spending meter more important, and making perhaps the best shadow move in the game work in slightly fewer situations. Overall, we are happy with how the rest of Mira’s strong gameplan is meshing with her crucial blood health weakness.]
Reduced the meter gain from Bat projectiles by 23% [It used to take 7 full sets of bats to build a meter, and now it takes 9. Overall this is a pretty minor change, as Mira can simply go in on her opponent to gain meter as needed.]
Shadow Bats now starts up in 16 frames (was 12) [This is a bigger change for Mira. Shadow Bats are not a true block string from all the same attacks as before; notably, canceling from medium normals and both medium and heavy Reaping will leave a gap to launch a projectile invincible attack, while light Trephine and all heavy normals work as before. Mira has to take slightly more risks to ensure Shadow Bats will be blocked so she can mix up behind their cover.]
Standing HP can be cancelled on hit/block 1 frame sooner. [We also moved the cancel window up so it would be a true block string into the new slowed down version of Shadow Bat]
Increased the range at which Mira can trigger her Ultra.
Gargos:
Izzik’s special now does 1 chip per hit (was 0)
Dretch’s special now does 3 chip damage (was 0) [We reduced a lot on Gargos over the last few updates. We felt that the minion special moves doing chip was a good reward for Gargos protecting his minions for a while, which is now harder due to their expanded vulnerable boxes, so we put this back the way it was.]
Medium Reckoning damage increased by 20% [Adding just a little more reward back to the anti air version of Reckoning will reward Gargos players who have great defense.]
Shin Hisako:
Spirit Orbs will now be destroyed if they go off screen for more than one second. [Shin Hisako’s ability to run away was very powerful against a lot of the cast. This change ensures that when she teleports behind you, it must be pretty quickly after the orb goes off screen, and the farthest she can appear behind you is the screen edge.]
Fixed a bug allowing Shin Hisako to cancel out of her Linker Shadow Shin On Ryo Zan after the fourth hit, causing the final fifth hit to not come out.
Increased the range from which Shin Hisako can trigger an Ultra. [Hisako’s ultra would not trigger off some of her far manuals, so we increased the range at which this is allowed to happen.]
Eagle:
All air arrow shots will no longer auto correct to face the opponent.
Hitstun on Lv2 and Special arrows reduced by 2 frames. [This removes his corner Arrow Rain loop.]
Any bird attacks in progress will be cancelled immediately if you input a Counter Breaker or a Shadow Counter. [This removes safe Counter Breaker attempts]
You can no longer command the bird while attempting a Shadow Counter. [This, along with the above change, removes safe Shadow Counter attempts]
You can no longer command the bird while teching a throw or having your throw teched. [This removes throw tech punishes]
Added 4 more frames of hitstun on Wingspan’s Surprise Knee followup, making comboing off of this on a grounded opponent more consistent.
Fixed a bug that could cause the charged up arrow state to get stuck and carry over to Rain Shot, Scatter Shot, or Throws.
Fixed a bug causing Air DF+HP Arrow to mess up Eagle’s air momentum if he jumps over his opponent.
Fixed an issue causing Cinder’s flames to fan any time Eagle aimed his bow or released an arrow, instead of just on the initial button press.
Fixed a bug that could cause Bird attacks to not count as openers.
Fixed a bug causing his Shadow Counter to hit on frame 10 instead of the intended frame 8.
Fixed a bug that could cause Eagle to dash away from his opponent using a broken animation when attempting a Counter Breaker from certain frames of his Wingspan Linker.
Fixed a bug causing the bird to go farther away from Eagle than expected when performing Sonic Screech with his back to the corner.
Fixed an issue that could cause a force block hitbox to get stuck on the bird when performing the QCB+3K command to trigger Bird Magnet.
Fixed an issue preventing the player from kara canceling into Shadow Scatter and Shadow Rain when the quiver was empty.
Fixed an issue preventing kara cancels into Shadow Rain from working.
Fixed an issue preventing kara cancels into Shadow Bird Magnet from working.
Fixed a bug causing Sonic Screech to build 3x as much meter as expected.
Fixed a bug that allowed Eagle to perform a linker after a Shadow Slide linker.
Fixed a bug that caused arrow projectiles to inherit to hit properties (stagger, sweep, etc) of Eagle’s whiffed attacks.
Fixed a bug preventing Skyfall from blowing out a combo, which allowed a between rounds infinite loop.
Fixed a bug that could crash the game if Kim Wu reflected Scatter Shot.
Fixed a bug that caused Arrow Fetch and Bird Magnet to remove Aganos Chunks on block.
No Changes:
Jago
Sabrewulf
Glacius
Orchid
Maya
Omen
Kim Wu
Tusk
General RAAM
Eyedol
Kilgore
Ultra-Combo.com notes that while they planned to release the patch this past Tuesday, but it will now drop sometime between now and Tuesday September 5th. What are your thoughts on these changes? Do you agree with Iron Galaxy’s assessment that the game will be in a solid place of balance following this update? Or do you think there’s still more work to be done, to refine KI into the best game possible? Give us your perspective in the comments, and Fight On!
After a hiatus of over a month, the Shadaloo Combat Research Institute has unearthed another batch of their Activity Reports, containing information on various characters throughout the Street Fighter universe. Private Nakagawa returns to provide narration for these documents.
First up, we have Elena’s family members.
Private Nakagawa: “Today we’re introducing Elena’s family. A proud family that inherited the blood of warriors, who lives in harmony with nature in a house in the Savannah. (Who knows if they can all do Healing!…)”
Basic Info:
Name: Jafari [Swahili rendition of the Arabic male name جعفر Ja’far, “spring, rivulet.”]
Height: 190cm
Weight: 92kg
Blood type: Unknown
Birthday: January 2nd
Country of Origin: Kenya
Likes: The Spirit of Family
Dislikes: Alcohol (can’t hold it)
Basic Info:
Name: Amina [Swahili rendition of two female Arabic names: the first, آمنة Āmina (accent upon the first syllable) “safe, secure,” was also the name of Muhammad‘s mother. The second, أمينة Amīna (accent upon the second syllable) “faithful, trustworthy,” is the female version of the male name أمين Amīn.]
Height: 183cm
Weight: 62kg
Blood type: Unknown
Birthday: February 7th
Country of Origin: Kenya
Likes: Family, Sukuma wiki
Dislikes: Paved Roads
Basic Info:
Name: Marcus [English version of the Latin name Marcus “related to Mars.” It’s curious this shift of names’ origin in the new generation: even Elena comes from the Ancient Greek Ἑλένη Helenē, maybe from ἑλάνη elane “torch” or a corruption of Σελήνη Selene, “Moon.” ]
Height: 184cm
Weight: 77kg
Blood type: Unknown
Birthday: September 7th
Country of Origin: Kenya
Likes: Capoeira
Dislikes: Sweets
Private Nakagawa: “The head of the family Jafari descends from a family of warrors. The mother Amina kindly watches over her family. Elena is only a few years apart from her older brother Marcus. Jafari went to study abroad in France and has a PhD in Pharmaceutics and Veterinary Medicine. He’s a good leader, and an extremely wise man. Amina is a loving mother. Her relatives live nearby. Marcus is a master capoeirista, raised under his father’s wing. He’s expected to succeed Jafari and establish his own family. He’s also secretly a fan of Dee Jay. The family gets along well, and spends the weekends going to the city, visiting museums and seeing theater.”
To refresh your memory, here’s a look at them from Elena’s Ultra Street Fighter IV Arcade Mode prologue.
Next up, we have Aprile’s brother, Maggio.
Private Nakagawa: “This time we introduce a kid with special issues. He doesn’t seem like someone able to fight, but he’s studying some power, apparently.”
Basic Info:
Name: Maggio [Italian, “May.” Which doesn’t agree with his birth month… Anyway, Italy is now officially “the land of absurd hair” according to Capcom. Not even Guile’s family could compete (and I expect Guile’s wife to show up soon).]
Height: 167cm
Weight: 52kg
Blood type: 0
Birthday: August 5th
Country of Origin: Italy
Likes: His Sister, Yo-yo
Dislikes: Dark Places
Private Nakagawa: “He’s a young man who’s searching for his disappeared older sister. Just when his parents were about to accept the fate of his sister, he heard of a fortune teller who could see into the future. Maggio was only a boy back then, but all alone he kept walking for days up to Genoa, where the “Palace of Miracles” was. He’s currently learning fortune telling together with a senior apprentice [Come on, we all know it’s Menat. It would make sense for Menat to pester Ed even in her story mode: after all, Ed could know where Aprile went, or she could be a member of his Neo-Shadaloo. So Aprile is still missing months after Shadaloo’s fall, apparently…] under the mistress of the Palace, while continuing to search for his sister. He never lets go of his yo-yo, because it was a present from his sister. Sniff, what a sad story… …But pink hair and Italian origin just reminded me of someone I think I met somewhere. The infirmary… it was? I forgot.”
Finally, we close out this set of profiles with one of Retsu’s underlings from the Mad Gear Gang, seen in 1993’s Final Fight 2, Eliza.
Private Nakagawa: “She can kill her enemies with her agility and her proficiency with the knife! It seems her knife attack pattern is so irregular that it’s extremely hard to dodge.
Basic Info:
Name: Eliza
Height: 160cm
Weight: 48kg
Blood type: A
Birthday: August 5th [Suspiciously identical to Maggio…]
Country of Origin: USA
Likes: NWOBHM
Dislikes: Dirty people
Private Nakagawa: “She’s fickle and prone to pursue every new fad. She had some experience in a band, when she wanted to become a vocalist, but soon she got tired and quit. It seems she has a twin brother named Robert. She’s currently searching for a lover!”
And with that, we’re at 235 CFN Portal profiles. From the looks of things, they’ll be covering the remaining goons of Final Fight 2 for the next few weeks, before possibly moving on to the mooks of Final Fight 3, or perhaps something else entirely. If you’re interested in more recent CFN Portal profiles, you can check out the Activity Reports of Demon Machami & Shin, as well as Meterorito Jr. & Antler Inoki.
Just yesterday, Street Fighter V received its 5th Season 2 DLC character, in the form of Menat. As is customary with any new addition to the roster, Capcom UK’s Community Manager, Matt Edwards, provides us with a brief introductory video to the character, along with a brief description of her V-System and playstyle, followed by a combo showcase.
As some may know by now, Menat is the apprentice of a “famous Italian fortuneteller,” who battles with a crystal ball that she controls with her Soul Power. Her V-Skill, Soul Reflect, will allow her to reflect standard projectiles back at the opponent while she has the ball at her side, but she will absorb them to fill her V-Gauge if the ball has been sent out — in a similar fashion to Nash’s V-Skill, or her mentor’s own Soul Reflect from previous games. It also possesses a hitbox and can be used to add hits to her combos. Her V-Trigger, Wisdom of Thoth, summons six orbs, with each of them tied to one of her six attack buttons, and can be sent out in any order she likes. They even boast unique trajectories for crouching, standing or aerial releases, which can lead to some disgustingly deceptive mix-ups and pressure opportunities.
Edwards notes that being able to successfully switch between keeping the ball on hand to increase Menat’s overall attack range, and knowing when and where to send it out for traps and mixups against your foes — especially when you recall it — is key to unlocking the character’s true power and potential.
Lastly, Edwards states that, “Three Special Moves may seem fairly conservative, but when you factor in Menat’s crystal sphere, highly-versatile V-Trigger and almost-instantaneous air drill (Khamun Kick), she’s easily a top contender for the most technically rewarding character in the game.” You can see the full video below.
For more on what Menat is capable of, you can check out our day 1 tech roundup here.
