WolfCrimson Posted February 26, 2011 Posted February 26, 2011 I'm pretty sure anyone should be able to tell why CS2 Tager is projected to be bad. His mix up game outside of spending 50 to 100 meter puts the odds against him (and Ragna gets a better otg throw). 6A's sparsely applied armor hasn't yet found a use that isn't done better by other moves, and it took a damage nerf for it. Collider, the biggest meterless damage source in his combos got nerfed. His move proration is still designed for his old combo rate and makes his combo damage range from average to terrible. His defensive options aren't very good, and he has a terrible counter assault. IB got nerfed so the ability to IB command throw is significantly downgraded. In addition to those bad defensive options he also has a huge hitbox giving most of the cast character specific mixups/combos. Buffing his throws was nice, but the reason he has so many bad match ups wasn't that his throws didn't do enough damage and he didn't get enough buffs outside of that, that we have seen, to be optimistic about it. High hp doesn't exactly compensate for much since his risk reward isn't that good even when he does get in. OK, here's why I think he's not as bad as you guys claim in CS2: - His mixup is ok for a grappler-type character. I don't expect him to be like Hazama in terms of mixup since he's not a rush-down type character. He has a somewhat invisible overhead (6B, hard to discern from 5b for me), that can be gattled to either another overhead or a low, or cancelled into a throw. Just being near him is a mixup in itself, what with the risk of being command thrown for heavy unburstable damage. 6A doesn't have a use? The japanese match vids show otherwise. 6A pulls in magnetized opponents who attempt to backdash away from Tager and hits them out of the back dash, can be used to get in a 360 by delaying the 360 so that they're no longer in blockstun, and can help pull in pesky magnetized zoners. He can also end his block strings safely too, by cancelling into A sledge, even with IB. (This isn't safe in CS1) - His counter assault is good, what on earth are you saying? It doesn't blow opponents away, it just knocks them down next to Tager, and that's what Tager needs. A far away opponent means more work for Tager to close in on them. - Poor defensive options? What about cancelling into Voltic charge (which can then be cancelled to 720 with 50 heat)? What about his amazing backdash? He doesn't have a DP to get out of pressure, sure, but he has the primers to keep on blocking. That stresses the fact that with Tager, you just block. No one in BB has an infinite blockstring, sooner or later they're gonna have holes in their pressure or throw out an unsafe move where Tager can capitalize on the situation. - About IB changes and damage nerf, that affected everyone, not just Tager. Tager's damage is actually not that different from CS1. -And a good ol' Dustloop tradition to boot: The japanese actually play him now, and can win with him, even against his worst match-ups (including Haz, who's a top tier). And they weren't the big shot Japanese players either (on both sides), but they were better than american players for sure. That itself says alot. tl;dr: Tager's not crippled, he's just different.
FlyingVe Posted February 26, 2011 Posted February 26, 2011 His mixup is terrible, especially for a grappler. Play a game with a good grappler, and being near them is almost game endingly terrifying. Tager often times is still at a disadvantage even when he gets up close. He has some of the worst defensive options in the game, couple with being huge. Votiac charge has lots of startup, his backdash is punishable on reaction most times, and a strat based around waiting for the opponent to screw up is not really a strat at all. Better players endeavor not to leave such openings, and often do not. His Counter Assault is ass. It's slow, and doesn't set-up jack for his offense. Also, it misses on airborne dudes alot. IB nerf hurts Tager more than it helps him as now he has an even harder time getting out of pressure. However, his bad match-ups are (mostly) a bit better than before, so he might be kinda viable this time around. Also, not many japanese play him, and many that did have switched.
bbq sauce Posted February 26, 2011 Posted February 26, 2011 Tager got that mad ambiguous High/Mid mix up, yo.
zreb Posted February 27, 2011 Posted February 27, 2011 (edited) - His mixup is ok for a grappler-type character. I don't expect him to be like Hazama in terms of mixup since he's not a rush-down type character. He has a somewhat invisible overhead (6B, hard to discern from 5b for me), that can be gattled to either another overhead or a low, or cancelled into a throw. Just being near him is a mixup in itself, what with the risk of being command thrown for heavy unburstable damage. This simply isn't true. Not trying to grill you or anything, but 6b is a 24 frame overhead and 6c is a 28 frame overhead. They are fairly slow--even if 6b->6c is projected enough that you wouldn't expect a low, you could simply block low after the 6b and then react to the 6c. Saying it looks like 5b... How? 5b is 10 frames start up. You can't react to 5b. If Tager does 6B and you're not in blockstun, that should be a huge red flag that it's not 5b. Tager's throw mixup isn't strong pressure because if Tager makes a move and the opponent guesses it right, often Tager eats a counterhit combo. Tager's gameplay is heavily reliant on these guessing games where it is not an unrealistic possibility that he can lose sorely (vs. a normal character, where it's "you blocked my thing, now I'm gonna continue pressuring unless I did something hilariously unsafe.") And like Ve said... Tager's major weakness is his inability to effectively escape pressure, not cause it. Besides, it sounds like you're trying to convince us why Tager isn't bad period and not why CS2 Tager is looking better than we perceive him to. Edited February 27, 2011 by zreb
A.X.I.S. Posted February 27, 2011 Posted February 27, 2011 Tager got that mad ambiguous High/Mid mix up, yo. ^This. Tagers overhead does not gattling into a low. His mix up is meh. The best thing he got going for him is fear and random and that is hard to exploit at high level play. IB nerf's didn't hurt Tager that much because we didn't iB 720 everything anyways. In fact to me its a trade off, no more "oh I IB'd such and such time to mash DP or poke" but for exchange we can't lol 360 bad characters like Tsubaki anymore. Tager doesn't beat Haz in japan...in fact any win he gets on Haz is not even legit IMO. Tager's CA is lol, don't use it for emergency, it offers him no oki and its amazingly bad on whiff. Voltech charge is theory talk don't bring that weak shit here son! Tager lost 500 damage off his BnB but hey his 3C got better p1 and gadget gives him 5 heat and does 100 damage. IMO Tager is better than he was in CS1. IMO Tager feels like he only wins through fear and random, I don't actually mind it because the threat of grabs keep people from mashing through my overheads and 4D makes my whoops into something safe and thanks to the IB nerf you can punish that punish. So guys...stop discussing Tager stuff! LOOK I AM SORRY OK I AM SORRY! I JUST WANT TO HEAR ABOUT MATCH UPS! -dies inside-
Osuna Posted February 27, 2011 Posted February 27, 2011 Sorry Axis, just one more from me. There were some ideas I didn't see and he was responding to me so I think just this much is ok. tl;dr: Tager's not crippled, he's just different.Tager is indeed not crippled by his changes, he has sucked since CT. They can't give him CS1 rachel treatment because that requires him to have been good at some point. Tager could 6A most backdashes in CS1 for what I consider significantly more damage than he can now, so if you want to count that as a utility of his new 6A I would call it a nerf. The pull is cute, but the sparsely placed armor puts him at pretty high risk (Especially since holding it for any meaningful length of pull gives the opponent enough time to react as long as they have an option available to them) just like all of his other methods of closing in besides walking and jumping it is dangerous. Someone else also made the mistake of assuming instantblock nerf made Asledge good a while. It's no longer punishable by everyone, but that doesn't mean it is plus on block. Gatlings into 4D were safer and got mag on block. That would make Asledge as a block string ender worse than what we have in CS1. XYH, and cancel into it? If you're doing it off a blocked attack then I have no idea how that can be a defensive option. Having to block is not a defensive option. That's Not having a defensive option. By definition, having to block a lot means his defensive options are bad. A tager beating a Hazama doesn't say anything unless the match up was projected to be 10-0. This doesn't mean he'll do worse in CS2, but he's not Good either.
huey253 Posted February 27, 2011 Posted February 27, 2011 man, it really sucks when you have to block and be patient to win with a gimpy character...
Commanderoftroy Posted February 27, 2011 Posted February 27, 2011 Lets be honest we know Tager is never going to get significantly better in any upcoming installment in this series. With that said maybe the people who play tager such as myself are hopeless and should take some blame for playing the character. Tager requires patience and any tager who is worth a damn can go on the defensive and scope out a players tendencies and search for holes, but on that note there will only be a few tagers who can win consistently at a high level of play and its been that way since CT.
Skye Posted February 27, 2011 Posted February 27, 2011 You guys could revolt and yell at Arcsys/Mori/Pachi/Obama/Santa until the put some effort in Tager being worth something.
Leaf Posted February 27, 2011 Posted February 27, 2011 tager is good, deal with it. i win with him all the time online
WolfCrimson Posted February 27, 2011 Posted February 27, 2011 Ah... I see. Ofc, I'm assuming all what you guys are saying is based on what you've seen, correct? Like,none of you have played CS2 Tager yet, correct? Hopefully when he gets here he won't be that bad. @Mac: What are you talking about? LK: OK, Tager's been dealt with. What about the other stuff? Can you comment on those?
huey253 Posted February 27, 2011 Posted February 27, 2011 i've beaten some people with tager too. I don't see what your problem is.
Lord Knight Posted February 28, 2011 Author Posted February 28, 2011 I'll catch up with this thread tomorrow. Shoutouts to Tempest Dahlia for coming to Philly and getting 2nd at Winter Brawl. I'm looking forward to playing people at Final Round.
Sophisticat Posted February 28, 2011 Posted February 28, 2011 Tager sucks, point. I've learned that you can pretty much faceroll/butt slap the controller and he can't do anything about it. 720/grabs/traps aren't even a threat anymore. It's a bit sad, in a way. No one should be treated like a sandbag. Anyway, LK, I'm in need of some general high-level mindgames/strats because the local guys I play can block all the Haku stuff I throw at them. Any tips? On that note, it's also one of the weaknesses of BB that I've noticed... Play enough, and you can block a ton of stuff. You'll start noticing that the game becomes a blocking fest. BB should give more threatening mixup options for every character. But that might just be me.
huey253 Posted February 28, 2011 Posted February 28, 2011 Tager sucks, point. I've learned that you can pretty much faceroll/butt slap the controller and he can't do anything about it. 720/grabs/traps aren't even a threat anymore. It's a bit sad, in a way. No one should be treated like a sandbag. Anyway, LK, I'm in need of some general high-level mindgames/strats because the local guys I play can block all the Haku stuff I throw at them. Any tips? On that note, it's also one of the weaknesses of BB that I've noticed... Play enough, and you can block a ton of stuff. You'll start noticing that the game becomes a blocking fest. BB should give more threatening mixup options for every character. But that might just be me. skeletal minion mixup i actually used to think that turtling was a problem in bb for a while too. then i got better.
Sophisticat Posted February 28, 2011 Posted February 28, 2011 skeletal minion mixup Please elaborate. Note: I'm aware of fuzzy j.B and 5b being jc-able... If that's what you meant. i actually used to think that turtling was a problem in bb for a while too. then i got better. It's not turtling at all, it's simply being able to block everything any character throws at you. It becomes hard to mixup (for both players) because you have to improvise and get creative. This isn't a problem in a game like Guilty Gear because of its depth. BB, on the other hand, isn't that deep.
LunaKage Posted February 28, 2011 Posted February 28, 2011 Please elaborate. Note: I'm aware of fuzzy j.B and 5b being jc-able... If that's what you meant. It's not turtling at all, it's simply being able to block everything any character throws at you. It becomes hard to mixup (for both players) because you have to improvise and get creative. This isn't a problem in a game like Guilty Gear because of its depth. BB, on the other hand, isn't that deep. Isn't needing to get creative a part of the game's depth?
Sophisticat Posted February 28, 2011 Posted February 28, 2011 Isn't needing to get creative a part of the game's depth? No, when your offensive options are limited. Also, I meant "creative" as in "getting gimmicky". That's not good. Ragna players will probably commiserate here.
LunaKage Posted February 28, 2011 Posted February 28, 2011 No, when your offensive options are limited. Also, I meant "creative" as in "getting gimmicky". That's not good. Ragna players will probably commiserate here. Oh yeah, that's different. I had to "get creative" to get any win on a decent opponent I've ever had. Even the one single match I beat LK I used one of my gimmicks to take the match, he probably had just never seen it before :C
huey253 Posted February 28, 2011 Posted February 28, 2011 No, when your offensive options are limited. Also, I meant "creative" as in "getting gimmicky". That's not good. Ragna players will probably commiserate here. there are a considerable number of players who would agree with this.... i just think you need to get better.
a Lisianthus Posted February 28, 2011 Posted February 28, 2011 Please elaborate. i think it was something like 5b>renka or tk tsubaki lol "50/50"
Nini Heart Posted February 28, 2011 Posted February 28, 2011 i actually used to think that turtling was a problem in bb for a while too. then i got better. Don't you play bang though? Nails, 5A, Overheads, Command grabs, lows, ambiguous crossups and cross unders, FRKZ, don't you have every single fucken tool at your disposal? What you meant to say is you got better at abusing the WIDE variety of tools your character has, amirite?
Sophisticat Posted February 28, 2011 Posted February 28, 2011 i just think you need to get better. Okay, sure. How? I'm at the point where my opponent is aware of my options, and I'm aware of his. He knows my habits and I know his, and we're both aware of this... Etc., Etc. So... How do I get better, that is the question! i think it was something like 5b>renka or tk tsubaki lol "50/50" Yeah, somewhat. 5b now hits crouchers and is also jump-cancelable. So you have the option of doing either a low or TK Tsubaki (or TK Hotaru if you want) after. It's good. Useful, too, but it's got its drawbacks since TK Tsubaki is vulnerable to poking or simply blocking. Not a true 50/50. Haku's only true 50/50 is fuzzy j.B. Low j.B can go into either 1) land -> low, or 2) instant dj.B -> Tsubaki. Takes a bit of conditioning to setup properly, and needs at least 3 stars to fool the opponent. Both are situational. ------- And with that, I'm out until LK decides to chime in with top-tier advice.
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