About changes in Signature Abilities (3.4 update)

[vucaar]

I don't speak english so everything you are going to read will be a bunch of broken english. Thanks for your attention.

Seriously, what is happening guys?
You are not losing so much being honest but basically I can say that I am near to retire from rift battles since you only "counter" or "nerf" the characters that gives you a chance to fight against people a way lot stronger than you, I can say that you are doing great disappointing people, because I really want to believe I am not the only one that has that feeling.

I can say that I don't agree so much about putting more buffs or debuffs because they become like "exclusive" in the end, there's not more ways of getting it, one that could copy the signature ability of Last Hope and other one that remembers Painwheel's marquee, the problem with it is that you break the game more and more (and I didn't make a mention about that Big Band copying buffs) but okay I could tolerate it because the tier and rarity, fine....

I can assimilate the improvement to the gold and diamond characters you made with signature abilities, it is boring that you only give more and more buffs to a character, but fine... they need it in a way so maybe it could make it a better challenge (I imagine a weekend warrior with that catalyst that gives you immune and unflinching for x seconds to make an example)...

But, Sketchy and Just Kitten....really? I have seen people complaining about Sketchy a lot of times and Just Kitten could become really annoying but in the end, they had the disadvantage about their nature, being bronze and more in skullgirls will give them poor stats in comparison with another tier, I have a diamond Headstrong and she could be the best for me but I can say that against an ICU Valentine or any other diamond with a crazy stat of HP or defence (plus the catalyst) I won't stand a chance, I have seen it through the months, since Rift Battles started.

The worst curse and the best balance thing with both characters was the tier, they could have an "overpowered" SA but they were weak in stats with most of the roster, even in the highest possible tier, and you can't tell me another thing because something I have learnt is the fact that you lie when you tell this game has RPG dynamic or strategy... haha come on this is only about raw power and crazy builds... and it is a shame because someone that is trying to fight no matter what and with that reason tries to find a strategy with debuffs or combos with characters in a team, you only nerf or disappear that ways, fantastic, so I only will stand a chance once I have a profile fulfilled with diamonds and hardcore builds, phew a piece of cake I guess...

Just Kitten had an annoying SA, but we have catalyst like armor rating, futile resistance or the great escape and you don't rebuild them, right?

Sketchy used to have a more simple SA in the beginning, then you rebuild it once Decrypted had her nerf (maybe you planned to just fill with buffs like crazy and she would be a real deal) and could activate her SA even being death, then it was cancelled and her SA was active only when she was alive, and now that stuff was working... what did you do? You rebuild her and don't think about making a limit on spammed catalyst or rebuild some of them that are broken right? No, just limit the roster of characters that could counter or punish the buffs spamming, nice work making a balance.

Let's watch the roster (just the most popular):
Graveyard Shift (low tier, low atk)
Doublicious (low tier, low resistance)
Silent Kill (high tier, low atk by nature)
Purrfect Dark (low tier, low resistance)
Rusty (low tier, low resistance+)
Sketchy (low tier, low resistance, low atk)
Stand Out (highest tier, highest rarity, low atk against another natural diamonds, can't assure the counter or punishment still)

If you pay attention, they always have a disadvantage with stats, and when you find a strength with them, you can be beaten really easy with just pure stats, there are moves and BB that could cause curse or retire buffs but their duration is so poor, unless you made a great investment (with a resource that basically is a need for everything, making it a super overload resource) on leveling them (carrying a move to lvl15 would be equal to invest in most of the skill tree of a gold character).

A lot of people (maybe top people) used to complain that players started to spam sketchy in rift battles and that was cheap, but placing between 6 to 10 nodes with an armor catalyst is not cheap and spamming armors in the nodes with slots of 2 or 3 catalyst if you can, it is not cheap, uh huh, sure.... between hard and toxic there is a difference excuse me (and this is just the most classic example). Forgive us for searching alternative ways to beat the teams, to stand a chance, to try to not flee from the apparent impossible teams, for trying to do the best with our weaker collection or to have the honor to try it and try to overcome the adversity.

Let's compare so

Overpowered advantage of old Sketchy:
- Signature Ability
- Easy investment
- "Easy" to find and stack
- If you pair her with the character of the strongest attack Red Velvet would be so unfair

Not enough disadvantage because old Sketchy is OP
- You needed her alive
- Poor stats against most of the characters, even in diamond, so no matter in which tier you had her, your Sketchy could enter just to get knocked out
- Took a slot of your team, so in most of situations you only have 2 effective fighters to deal with your opponent
- You needed at least a tag in and one tag out to trigger ability
- Autoimmune catalyst (but that 100% once it is leveled up doesn't need a rebuild because is great to block any try to inflict debuff)
- Surgeon General or any other character that get immune

It is not just Sketchy and Just Kitten, you made it in the past too (Decrypted for example), and it only makes me to reach a conclusion: A game where you rebuild characters of highest tiers for improvement and giving a nerf for bronze characters (the weakest and lowest tier) it doesn't give me the feeling of balance, it gives me the feeling of a mediocre development and decisions.

P. S.: Why don't you give a stack of blessing to Bassline when he tags in or introduce diamond catalyst? Good work in matchmaking also.

 

[Am_Suitcase]

Warning: Salty Suitcase inbound


I had played this game long before Beowulf was added. As a player who spams armor rating and frost armor on my nodes; I have to agree that nerfing Sketchy; to the point she was in now, is too far.
While I am happy that there were buffs to HnS,TaF and Ms. Trial and I genuinely like Squigly’s origin story, that one “simple” nerf to Sketchy ruined rifts for me.

Speaking from experience, if I use multiple Sketchies, it’s because I have to constantly go through multiple Frost armors; armor ratings and others. Reducing the length of curse and slow would have been fine enough. Outright preventing it for actually playing the game is just....wrong and overexcessive. How dare I use 2-3 Sketchy’s because every single node has armor. How dare I not follow the meta of “just play around it derp”. Sometimes I wonder if this is just it. That rifts are meant to be migraine inducing and headache causing. To make the one mode that isn’t repetitive overtime be really hard but not in a fun way. Rather it has to be over the top stupid. That spamming frost armor is completely and obviously fair but utilizing a bronze Sketchy how dare they. Vucaar already addressed the issues with using Sketchy back then and I agreed there.

While weekend warrior’s buff is nice. I really bad for those on the Beowulf Master Story Aegis node now. I can only imagine what can be done on that node.

If for some reason Sketchy has to remain this way; it’s only fair we get diversity in catalysts to. Maybe I can actually create more interesting nodes for a change. I used to think 3.1 has the absolute worst in rifts but now I wonder if that’s dethroned now.

I’ll be taking a long hiatus in this game. It just feels too stressful with not very rewarding rewards. I want to like this game more but i’ve lost all motivation to continue.

 

[xcapibara]

In my opinion, the devs should begin to introduce new ways to deal with the buff fest; either new characters, revamped sa’s to existing ones or changed properties of moves (and i mean things like chaos banish). The current ways are very limited and with the sketchy nerf more so. And no, blockbusters that have small chances to proc curse or hex, especially if they are bb2’s, are not proper counters; they require you to actually fill their meters by hitting the opponent and thus triggering the very buffs you’re trying to avoid. There’s only one character in the entire roster that can apply hex consistently from the sa (through blockbusters use though) and her atk stat is quite mediocre. Not to mention hex is inferior to curse thanks to catalysts and supports. Rainbow blight’s hex is situational. Purrfect dark is a silver made of wet paper. The other “counters” are not preventive but chance based of removal, meaning the buffs they remove can trigger again in the next immediate hit.

 

[Diony]

I thought I was the only one who had hated these 2 nerfs in Just Kitten and Sketchy.

They short the time to 10s and if any teammate die, don't trigger the SA anymore. It's pretty bad

 

[vucaar]

I have seen that people still says that Sketchy is broken in rifts and agrees with the change, well I can say that I used to get dissapointed too watching my defence nodes beat by a team with Sketchy, but once I learnt how to use her I understood that it was fair and I wouldn't complain, that wasn't cheat or something similar in the end, there was a dynamic you could take advantage, and not abuse because like I said above, has the disadvantage that she needed at least one partner to activate any ability, also catalyst and the condition that she is weak and you must have her alive. Once I say that let's take an example, my example:

I used to bring Sketchy in only 3 cases (even when I fought with people that has most of the nodes with armor rating, frost armor or darknut catalyst, I used silent kill, stand out or taking a lot of risk that weak Purrfect I have):
- Boss node (only if had any armor node, if not, I would use normal team, and I say normal because it seems it is a crime to use Sketchy)
- Middle node (armor node)
- Scratching Post and not a single 1 vs 1 node (if I had an unused Sketchy, if not, I would carry my Private Dick and just pray)

Being a "not qualified" Gold 2 it was common to fight against people a way lot stronger than me (maybe 80 or 90% of the rift battles), so my only chance was to cancel "temporarily" the buffs of the opponent (except Valentine that gets heavy regen no matter what), but in the end that was just the first part of the plan, because then I should have to deal with your crazy/hardcore/well build stats of your characters, and if they were designed to be just a tank or a sponge, well I lost anyways. The thing I am trying to say that sketchy, even being a great helper, she solved just a part of the problem and the risk that you took with her was high, in practice you are "wasting" a slot of your team of 2 or 3 to bring a character that couldn't do something if your partner (2) or partners (3) are defeated, the other part of the problem was the characters and their SA or stats, sketchy wasn't the victory key and still you nerf her, like Just Kitten that sometimes she couldn't evade any hit and you didn't have something to worry. With my conditions I was able to maintain in the Gold 2 tier (since the new system at 3.1) all the time except this week that maybe, after a long time, I will get a downgrade but it is just because I don't have any interest now, I guess showing skill it is not enough, I have to go to the insane way of grinding and building to be considered a "good" player and get offended if my teams are defeated or if I get paired against people with similar strength, right?

Another complaining was that her SA had a "long" duration, well @Am_Suitcase had the kindness and dedication to make a review about your dynamics of the AI here: https://forum.skullgirlsmobile.com/threads/ai-spamming-block-mid-dash-or-far-away.14994/#post-37267 and basically the AI in the nightmare difficulty*** on rift battles will only search your error, so it will be blocking, waiting for you, or doing the classic mid dash blocking and with their speed of commands you won't have a chance, sometimes your 15 seconds of curse was consumed on a blocking Valentine / Parasoul / Double / Big Band all the time, or with a Robo Fortune / Ms. Fortune going nuts by their AI behaviour.

Once I get a cooldown I still think that your concept of balance is mediocre, beyond of personal feelings, you have shown you are carrying this game to a buff festival or just introducing characters to search a balance (and failing I can say) or break more the game and taking away our chances to counter or punish that spamming buffs. I am just a normal player so I know you won't do anything but at least if you developer or moderator reads it, I guess it will be enough.

*** I gave you a point giving the name of the nightmare difficulty of the characters behaviour on rift battles but in fact, making impossible inputs for the player and have insane speed is completely unfair, but fine I had tolerance all this way playing it anyways, but giving a "balance" (again) to bronze characters was the straw that broke the camel's back

 

[MatDestruction]

As a Diamond 4 player I need to say:
Sketchy kind of deserved a nerf. Now, don't get me wrong, I think they overkilled her with the "doesn't activate in teammate death" part. Part of the fun in Rift, for me, is planning your attack. Where am I going to use my best diamond? Where I am going to use my best support unit? Do I need different Blockbusters for this node? Should I save this character for other node, although he's really strong? And the list goes on. But them you see how your opponent tackles your base. Armor node: he use Sketchy and 2 characters. Ok. Boss node: another Sketchy. Innercia: a third and different Sketchy. Even some random 2-fighters node he uses another one. Even when he loses in a trio node, he just change her Sketchy to a different one so he doesn't lose more points. There's no planning to that. It's just ridiculous spamming. Heck, I don't even have multiple armor nodes. I have a single one, but people still spam Sketchy because it's just that op. Get rid of Grudge, get rid of ICU, get rid of Master of Unblocking, etc.
Not only that, but the immunity also is bonkers. Multiple Catalysts and SAs are debuffs, but Sketchy counter that also.

Let's be fair, the only 2 Catalyst Sketchy can't counter are Futile Resistance and Don't Poke the Buer (and I guess Darknut and Lightweight)

So, in conclusion, while I don't agree with the Sketchy nerf, she was indeed op. The way I see it, they should have approached it in another way. Penalize players for using the same type of character multiple times, the same way in which you lose points for reusing the same character twice. Keep the energy of the individual fighter, but now applies the penalty for the type of character you reuse. That's -250 for each Sketchy my opponent has, and that would be much fairer.

 

[Diony]

So, in conclusion, while I don't agree with the Sketchy nerf, she was indeed op. The way I see it, they should have approached it in another way. Penalize players for using the same type of character multiple times, the same way in which you lose points for reusing the same character twice. Keep the energy of the individual fighter, but now applies the penalty for the type of character you reuse. That's -250 for each Sketchy my opponent has, and that would be much fairer.

Exactly, this is way better than strongly nerf a character. But -1000 or more

 

[fanghoul]

Rifts require a lot of long term planning: months of gathering resources to upgrade characters to diamond, maybe max out their MA, and to give them the XP they need to actually work on defense. Catalysts can take a very long time to acquire, and a ton of canopy coins to upgrade. Having that characters and catalysts suddenly change their effects has been... a bit discouraging. 2 out of the last 4 characters I brought to diamond can't be used the way I planned to use them and it's really, really rough.

For instance, taking Just Kitten to diamond no longer seems like a great choice. It's going to take what feels like forever to replace the 3 water essences and 5 gold Ms. Fortunes that I used in that upgrade. It's frustrating because it would have been more profitable now to upgrade either Purrfect Dark or Untouchable with those resources.

Sketchy was admittedly an outlier for wrecking so many defenses at such a small investment (You could and can use a lv 1 bronze one with investment of just a handful of canopy coins), but is a symptom of an ongoing issue where people invest heavily in X, because X works, only for X to become Y suddenly. It punishes players for looking for strategies that work other than investing in the most expensive character possible by wasting their resources. I was just thinking that with Sketchy gone, maybe it's time to finally take my Rusty to Diamonds as another counter against buffs, but that seems incredibly risky to me now. Who knows if she's next on the chopping block? Or will it be my bronze Squigglies with maxed MA?

 

[Blimeylimey]

I'm still trying to evaluate what I think of the Sketchy nerf. Even before the nerf was revealed, my experience in rifts was that Sketchy use was already disappearing, but her existence still influenced the metagame. Because Sketchy existed, I only put reactive armor catalysts (like Frost Armor and Armor Rating) on solo nodes. For the trio nodes, catalysts need to include Autoimmune, Into Thin Air, or Futile Resistance. I designed my defense around the existence of Sketchy.
I think Sketchy's influence already started dropping since Armor Rating got nerfed. You still want Autoimmune for nodes with reactive armor regardless of Sketchy. Xenomorph's influence promotes use of Last Words and Hexy Time. Futile Resistance is powerful on its own anyways.
Since the patch 3.4 came out, I looked at my base to see if I should make changes to perhaps bait Sketchy use and came to the conclusion that it doesn't matter anyways. Any change I could think of to bait Sketchy would actually invite a different, more powerful counter and likely weaken the node overall.
In summary:
1) pre-3.4 Sketchy seemed powerful enough to warp the metagame around her existence
2) before patch 3.4, I think the metagame (at least where I was getting matches) was already adjusting and getting to the point where Sketchy's influence was decreasing
3) Whether the Sketchy changes actually influence the metagame remains to be seen.

 

[vucaar]

Sketchy kind of deserved a nerf. Now, don't get me wrong, I think they overkilled her with the "doesn't activate in teammate death" part. Part of the fun in Rift, for me, is planning your attack. Where am I going to use my best diamond? Where I am going to use my best support unit? Do I need different Blockbusters for this node? Should I save this character for other node, although he's really strong? And the list goes on.

Like I said above, you are saying similar stuff, I am not going to say that I didn't get bothered when I saw my defences were broken by a sketchy and two other fighters, or if they were defeated, the same or another sketchy with other 2 characters, but once I understood the high risk and the bet you were making carrying a sketchy, I learn to understand why they use it and why I use it, and just in specific scenarios, I had 2 sketchies, 3 in the week before they introduce the 3.4 update. For you is easy to just pick which diamond you are going to use against an opponent that is weaker than you, I had seen it but when you were the weak opponent, you had to plan and build a strategy like you said, making the question you place it, even on using sketchy: Can I handle this team with just 2 fighters and Sketchy? or Do I have to carry my strongest team and take the risk of the neverending spamming buffs? In the end if I finish carrying her it would be a fight in the boss node of a team with a score of 34k against one with the range between 70k or 90k or if I decide to carry a team of my strongest characters it would be a team of 48k but with the risk of having a time out or defeated by the same case of neverending buffs.

In my case, as Eliza main user, I had a "Chaos Banish" with bad stats but that one is to waste one slot of any Eliza to be switching when I need it or making a sacrifice and equip an outtake in my strongest characters to trigger Sketchy, even without stats only for help me to trigger SA, just an example.

If your case was that you get bothered that your rival beat your defence teams (that you invested a lot, but your opponent did the same investment keeping proportions obivously) and didn't have strategy I can say that it is in fact, even when you don't think it in that way, is trying to have a chance with apparent impossible scenarios, again that Peacock only gave you chances, didn't assure anything in the end, and if you think that is boring to only watch Sketchy beating your teams and there is no planning, well I can say that there isn't too spaming armor rating/frost armor (even stacking in one node) in most of the map (and I have faced a lot of Gold 2 and Diamond 4 and 3 with that "strategy")

Anyways, let's make a list about the catalyst (only I know) sketchy can and cannot counter:
Can counter (even when it says can, it is just partial):
- Armor Rating
- Frost Armor
- Electrostatic Field
- Rising Temperatures
- Blockbusted
- To be precise

1/2 counter (need specific scenario):
- Final fight
- Last Words
- Fire Starter
- Super Slow-Mo
- High waters
- That catalyst that gives you haste and meter
- Special Exception

Cannot counter:
- Megalixir
- Futile Resistance
- Into thin air
- Darknut (because it applies stacks anyways)
- Light weight (same than darknut)
- Return to sender
- The great escape
- Don't poke the buer

But okay, I can agree if you put a penalty using copies even being different (sounds silly but I guess it is), not as severe as you have said about 250 points, why? Because using copies in your map gives you a penalty of 100 points only, so maybe it would be the same penalty, but again, watch and think it again, beyond of Sketchy.... have you seen what they did do? They *nerf* bronze characters and boost gold characters, what the... ?

Even having that penalty and giving the nerf of duration would be okay, but that "death exception" along with the bronze characters nerfs is ridiculous.

The first page of my collection, just to show I cannot be picking any character I want to fight, and more when I used to be most of the time with a great disadvantage