[CS2] Iron Tager General Discussion

[A.X.I.S.]

Netplay probably made me drop things like it normally does.

The combo is: 5A>5B>3C>5C>6A>collider>stuff.

But if its too many hits you can just do 5C>collider so you can still follow up.

Or you know? 3C>gadget.

[CrazyI-nomitsu]

Oh ok. Thanks math problem.

[WolfCrimson]

Ouch at 5:05 - till end of first round of this match. The hell. Tager needs something to combat that, seriously.

So here's what I would suggest. Give Tager a (Potemkin's) sliding head-like move (different animation, ofc) with a followup that magnetises the opponent. Like maybe a 214C input where Tager slams the ground with both fists (kind of like shortened reverse 2C animation, but way faster in startup and recovery), which untechable knocks down the opponent (like sliding head, no damage if far away) and an additional follow-up input (maybe like 236D) that magnetises the entire floor for a brief moment, and any opponent knocked down or actually standing/crouching gits hit. Standing/crouching opponents just get hit (talking about the follow-up here) with no additional attack effects (i.e. they are in standing hitstun/crouching hitstun, also the move can be blocked low, still gives mag), but knocked down opponents get launched into the air where they can be drawn in by Tager's AC. OFC the initial move 214C can also hit opponents if close enough, and knocks them down on the ground. Ofcourse such a move would be broken without a limiting factor, so I suggest the mag follow-up (236D) use up sparkbolt gauge.

[TagerTime]

Ouch at 5:05 - till end of first round of this match. The hell. Tager needs something to combat that, seriously.

So here's what I would suggest. Give Tager a (Potemkin's) sliding head-like move (different animation, ofc) with a followup that magnetises the opponent. Like maybe a 214C input where Tager slams the ground with both fists (kind of like shortened reverse 2C animation, but way faster in startup and recovery), which untechable knocks down the opponent (like sliding head, no damage if far away) and an additional follow-up input (maybe like 236D) that magnetises the entire floor for a brief moment, and any opponent knocked down or actually standing/crouching gits hit. Standing/crouching opponents just get hit (talking about the follow-up here) with no additional attack effects (i.e. they are in standing hitstun/crouching hitstun, also the move can be blocked low, still gives mag), but knocked down opponents get launched into the air where they can be drawn in by Tager's AC. OFC the initial move 214C can also hit opponents if close enough, and knocks them down on the ground. Ofcourse such a move would be broken without a limiting factor, so I suggest the mag follow-up (236D) use up sparkbolt gauge.

Thats the same fantastic idea i come up with a few months ago.

[WolfCrimson]

Really? I didn't know, didn't mean to plagiarize you dude. But still, I hope this gets implemented so that Tager could compete more.

Also, I've thought of something else that would greatly help Tager. Increase his character combo rate up to 55%, make his 5A have 6 frame startup (down from 7) and AUB, as well as his 2A to 7 frame startup (down from 8) and also AUB. Also, make his 360 A & B minimum startup a bit quicker. Like 7 frames for 360A, and 4 frames for 360B. And give his 2C a gatling into 4D and 6B. Oh, and XYH should have guard point beginning from frame 4, and up till 5 frames before recovery ends, and can be cancelled into 720C from frame 1-26. There we go, a good Tager.

Damn, I should try my hand at toning down Makoto, Noel, Haz, Jin, Ara,Tao and Carl. I've got a few good ideas here.

PS. Also, forot the most important thing: improve 2C's horizontal range. I swear I can see the fists of Tager's 2C sprite hitting the opponent sometimes but the 2C doesn't hit. That's just crazy.

Edited June 16, 2011 by WolfCrimson

[TagerTime]

Really? I didn't know, didn't mean to plagiarize you dude. But still, I hope this gets implemented so that Tager could compete more.

lol i thought of it to myself before i became a member here. i'm glad someone else had the same idea too.

[Manta]

Eh, just make forcing a timeout whilst in negative penalty cause you to lose, regardless of the health you have left. That'd work.

[WolfCrimson]

Hey manta, I see you're in England, we should try to play sometime, I have good connection against Europe.

[Osuna]

Really? I didn't know, didn't mean to plagiarize you dude. But still, I hope this gets implemented so that Tager could compete more.

Also, I've thought of something else that would greatly help Tager. Increase his character combo rate up to 55%, make his 5A have 6 frame startup (down from 7) and AUB, as well as his 2A to 7 frame startup (down from 8) and also AUB. Also, make his 360 A & B minimum startup a bit quicker. Like 7 frames for 360A, and 4 frames for 360B. And give his 2C a gatling into 4D and 6B. Oh, and XYH should have guard point beginning from frame 4, and up till 5 frames before recovery ends, and can be cancelled into 720C from frame 1-26. There we go, a good Tager.

Damn, I should try my hand at toning down Makoto, Noel, Haz, Jin, Ara,Tao and Carl. I've got a few good ideas here.

PS. Also, forot the most important thing: improve 2C's horizontal range. I swear I can see the fists of Tager's 2C sprite hitting the opponent sometimes but the 2C doesn't hit. That's just crazy.

Depending on where they are 2C has pretty good horizontal range, but I know what you mean.

Air unblockable 5A would be kinda crazy in general, but it's weird with tager because we get a mix up off them blocking it and on hit it doesn't lead to a real combo.

No one else has a 4 frame move so it would be insane to give a a really high damage move the ability to stuff 5A's at +/-0 (some at -1, which also defeats some of the reason we have 360A and 720). 360A would also lose a lot of utility with fewer invuln frames and less time for magnet pull.

Character rate of 55% with his current proration exemptions would make Tager's meter gain silly because he'd get longer combos on top of the extra damage. His damage and meter gain aren't completely horrible right now either.

Would 2C 6B even work? It looks like it would miss like most of the time. 2C has a lot of push back and you'll have received all of it by the time 6B comes out.

2C 4D is a no brainer it was useful and would be again if they gave it back, and it would be nice for them to give us a halfway decent option defensively, like Dacidbro wanted for 6A, but I personally rather they buff our backdash than our XYH armor startup.

And if we got the ability to cancel XYH whenever, no one would care that its armor is a little slow to start. I'm being critical, because the reasons some of these things don't work or would work too well is insightful to the way things work now, but even I have a silly wish list in my head. Here's a glimpse, counter assault has slidehead style knock down.

[WolfCrimson]

Depending on where they are 2C has pretty good horizontal range, but I know what you mean.

Air unblockable 5A would be kinda crazy in general, but it's weird with tager because we get a mix up off them blocking it and on hit it doesn't lead to a real combo.

Hakumen has an AUB 5A, and it's not super-powerful at all. And with Tager's generally slow air-unblockable normals, I thought it might've been useful to stuff jumping back up out from in front of Tager (since he hardly has options to keep them jumping out unless it's a yomi'd collider or yomi'd 5C)

No one else has a 4 frame move so it would be insane to give a a really high damage move the ability to stuff 5A's at +/-0 (some at -1, which also defeats some of the reason we have 360A and 720). 360A would also lose a lot of utility with fewer invuln frames and less time for magnet pull.

Well... the same can be said about Guilty Gear, Potemkin Buster has 3 frames of startup, no one has a 3 frame move, and you don't really see anyone complaining about Pot buster being overpowered. And people can always jump out of it or back-dash, 360B's range and magnetic pull is short, and it won't be able to catch during jump and back-dash startup, so it kinda balances out. And it's not like he can cancel it from any normal he likes. 360A's invuln frames and max start-up won't be affected, just its minimum startup. So in theory he'd have more frames of magnetic pull. As for invuln frames, I say give it at most 2 extra frames after startup (so invuln would be from frame 3 to frame 8). You'd still use 360 A normally as you do now, just that opponents doing blockstrings up-close against Tager would now have a reason to be careful (360B). Still, you're right that 360B might overshadow 360A (4 frames of startup compared the 3 frames it takes to reach invuln for 360A), so would making 360B have 5 frames of start-up suffice? We want to make Tager king of close-range, after all.

Character rate of 55% with his current proration exemptions would make Tager's meter gain silly because he'd get longer combos on top of the extra damage. His damage and meter gain aren't completely horrible right now either.

Character combo rate doesn't affect untech time at all, so his combostrings are largely unaffected. He'd do more damage, that's all. So at the very least, he'd be able to break 4K off of fatal without only relying on 360B for that kind of damage.

Would 2C 6B even work? It looks like it would miss like most of the time. 2C has a lot of push back and you'll have received all of it by the time 6B comes out.

I kinda included that more as a blockstring mix-up, rather than a combo route option... but if 2C> 4D used to work on block, why wouldn't 2C> 6B, seeing as how 6B has more range than 4D.

2C 4D is a no brainer it was useful and would be again if they gave it back, and it would be nice for them to give us a halfway decent option defensively, like Dacidbro wanted for 6A, but I personally rather they buff our backdash than our XYH armor startup.

Actually, backdash is fine as is IMO, giving it more invuln frames to make it unpunishable or something would make it braindead; just backdash through all the blockstring gaps in the world, and it would be unbaitable. As it is now, it needs to be used correctly to make it useful.

And if we got the ability to cancel XYH whenever, no one would care that its armor is a little slow to start. I'm being critical, because the reasons some of these things don't work or would work too well is insightful to the way things work now, but even I have a silly wish list in my head. Here's a glimpse, counter assault has slidehead style knock down.

The only reason I gave XYH that big a window to cancel is because I (personally) find it useless to be able to cancel only during the first 10 frames (where you'd get hit out of it during the first 6 (because it'd take at least 5 frames to input a 720C), and there are hardly any gaps like that with the IB nerf and all, plus doing the 720 motion in that small a window is HARD (I play on PS3 pad, dunno about stick). Of course, you make sense about the window being TOO large, so I'd be fine with a window of 18 frames, rather than 25.

Also, you can share your ideas, if you want to. But that slide-head counter assault, do you mean like successful hit CA would give untechable knockdown, or like gives that "ground shake untechable knockdown" from far away?

There we go.

[Manta]

Yeah, could find your on PSN. I play Mu outside of Tager these days, because we really don't want more insipid Tager mirrors.

Also, a slidehead CA would be interesting against the likes of Hazama. Still need something else to beat him though, he really is untouchable when it comes to Tager.

Edited June 16, 2011 by Manta

[WolfCrimson]

Funnily enough, I'm no Tager player. I used to Tager (yes, 'Tager' is now a verb) in the beginning month of CT as a sub, but then switched to Haku and that's it. I just like Tager as a character, and I love BB enough to try to find ways to improve its balance and such (in my head, at least).

Slidehead CA would only be useful against zoning moves, like ground lobelias, ground swords and ground snakes. And it's not like these characters never come close enough to hit Tager, it's just that they're usually more away than close. Still, a pretty good idea.

Edited June 16, 2011 by WolfCrimson

[Isorropia]

Hakumen has an AUB 5A, and it's not super-powerful at all. And with Tager's generally slow air-unblockable normals, I thought it might've been useful to stuff jumping back up out from in front of Tager (since he hardly has options to keep them jumping out unless it's a yomi'd collider or yomi'd 5C)

Tager having AUB 5A would actually be a nerf. :/

It doesn't 'stuff jumping', you don't get combos from air hit 5A/5B, so I wouldn't consider landing a jab and then watching them tech away to safety useful. It wouldn't stop them jumping because you're not actually gaining anything by hitting them. It's much better to have them block it in the air and then fall into a mixup when they hit the ground.

Also people complain about pot buster all the time. Mainly the damage+oki aspect of it, but I'm sure there are complaints about its startup as well.

imo tagers grabs and etc are fine atm (in fact, I think 4.8k+oki off 360B is excessive and should be toned down. Especially if it were lowered to 4f/5f as you suggest, it would become even dumber for punishes). What tager needs is....to be potemkin. To have long range lows which lead to damage or oki. And since BB techrolls ruin oki and gadget finger is no replacement for real oki....yeah, longrange lows that lead to damage would be sweet.

Also slidehead CA would be great. Untech knockdown after blocking projectiles, but also untech knockdown if you hit the CA normally (I assume osuna had that in mind as well). Frame -ve on block of course, like other CAs, but really, if they couldn't techroll and were forced to get up in place.....oh man, that would be fun.

[WolfCrimson]

Tager having AUB 5A would actually be a nerf. :/

It doesn't 'stuff jumping', you don't get combos from air hit 5A/5B, so I wouldn't consider landing a jab and then watching them tech away to safety useful. It wouldn't stop them jumping because you're not actually gaining anything by hitting them. It's much better to have them block it in the air and then fall into a mixup when they hit the ground.

Also people complain about pot buster all the time. Mainly the damage+oki aspect of it, but I'm sure there are complaints about its startup as well.

imo tagers grabs and etc are fine atm (in fact, I think 4.8k+oki off 360B is excessive and should be toned down. Especially if it were lowered to 4f/5f as you suggest, it would become even dumber for punishes). What tager needs is....to be potemkin. To have long range lows which lead to damage or oki. And since BB techrolls ruin oki and gadget finger is no replacement for real oki....yeah, longrange lows that lead to damage would be sweet.

Also slidehead CA would be great. Untech knockdown after blocking projectiles, but also untech knockdown if you hit the CA normally (I assume osuna had that in mind as well). Frame -ve on block of course, like other CAs, but really, if they couldn't techroll and were forced to get up in place.....oh man, that would be fun.

Oh come on, we know for sure they won't make Tager into Potemkin-style Tager, his Magnetism aspect just won't allow it.

And won't teching away from AUB 5A make the opponent fall into a techtrap? You'd be able to AC afterwards, won't that catch them? And if they don't tech, you can just continue into combo, right? But if it doesn't work like that, then yeah, I can understand what you're saying.

I'm sure you know that currently 360B has 6 frames of start-up. Shaving off one frame wouldn't make it even 'dumber', it wasn't dumb to begin with. It's a move that can be easily avoided and punished, and needed you to be very close (less close with mag) to work. And I think you need to be near corner for that 4.8K for most of the cast, and 4.8K only works midscreen with a select few who deserve it (Tao, Haz I think?). Or you need really good execution for micro-walk 2B.

[Manta]

Also, Pot buster was actually slower than standard grabs. In GG, grabs had no startup at all, Pot buster just had absurd reach for a throw and mad damage if you used an Frc (and you would).

A simpler way to stop them techrolling would be to make the move launch them vertically upwards and let them bouncetech normally (but no air tech). Another long ranged move that added magnetism would also be useful, since tager relies on magnetism to get a grip on characters that fly all over the place, and spark bolt is really not enough.

[WolfCrimson]

Also, Pot buster was actually slower than standard grabs. In GG, grabs had no startup at all, Pot buster just had absurd reach for a throw and mad damage if you used an Frc (and you would).

A simpler way to stop them techrolling would be to make the move launch them vertically upwards and let them bouncetech normally (but no air tech). Another long ranged move that added magnetism would also be useful, since tager relies on magnetism to get a grip on characters that fly all over the place, and spark bolt is really not enough.

What move?

[Manta]

This theoretical CA we're having dreams about.

[Isorropia]

And won't teching away from AUB 5A make the opponent fall into a techtrap? You'd be able to AC afterwards, won't that catch them? And if they don't tech, you can just continue into combo, right? But if it doesn't work like that, then yeah, I can understand what you're saying.

Assuming no magnetism, you can't techtrap from it. Air techs have ~10f invuln, and by the time that wears off they're well out of AC's range. And even with magnetism, if you're timing an AC to catch forward/back air techs, a late neutral tech will let them score a free CH against you....not a great situation. If they don't tech at all then yeah, you can take the ~2k blue beat combo from it.

As for 360B, it actually works on most of the cast surprisingly. Of course the micro walk isn't easy, but it and its slight variants give the 4.8k midscreen vs the following:

NO, TK, LI, LA, TG, VK, TS, HZ, RG, JI, MU, MK, RC

And when I say dumb it's like....say a noel player does an assault through, hoping to catch you trying to punish drive strings. You block it. It's -9 on block. If you're anyone but tager, you can probably do a 5B into whatever you do midscreen, getting, say, ~2k damage. Tager gets 4.8k in the same situation. Tager's ability to punish mistakes is too much for new players to deal with (and hence they think tager is overpowered and etc) but doesn't really help that much at high level play (because people just don't make those sorts of mistakes often). So that's why I'd like lower damage from throws but better jump prevention and longer range combo confirms.

[WolfCrimson]

@Manta: Oh. That'd be great, actually. Wait, didn't I already suggest this via the slide-head-clone with floor mag follow-up?

Edited June 16, 2011 by WolfCrimson

[WolfCrimson]

Assuming no magnetism, you can't techtrap from it. Air techs have ~10f invuln, and by the time that wears off they're well out of AC's range. And even with magnetism, if you're timing an AC to catch forward/back air techs, a late neutral tech will let them score a free CH against you....not a great situation. If they don't tech at all then yeah, you can take the ~2k blue beat combo from it.

As for 360B, it actually works on most of the cast surprisingly. Of course the micro walk isn't easy, but it and its slight variants give the 4.8k midscreen vs the following:

NO, TK, LI, LA, TG, VK, TS, HZ, RG, JI, MU, MK, RC

And when I say dumb it's like....say a noel player does an assault through, hoping to catch you trying to punish drive strings. You block it. It's -9 on block. If you're anyone but tager, you can probably do a 5B into whatever you do midscreen, getting, say, ~2k damage. Tager gets 4.8k in the same situation. Tager's ability to punish mistakes is too much for new players to deal with (and hence they think tager is overpowered and etc) but doesn't really help that much at high level play (because people just don't make those sorts of mistakes often). So that's why I'd like lower damage from throws but better jump prevention and longer range combo confirms.

Combo notation, please?

I understand what you're trying to say; you want Tager to have less damage to compensate for the better control of space he'd gain through longer ranged normals.

Making Tager have good mid-range to long-range pokes goes against his magnetism gimmick (which I don't think they'll do away with). So either mag has to go or he has to be super-king of short range with mag tools to bring them close.

[Darlos9D]

I was just thinking about GF yesterday, thinking about how it'd be fantastic if it just dropped the opponent prone and forced them to tech neutral. If they set it up so they could tech bounce the moment they hit the ground, and had Tager recover on that exact frame (or a couple frames before even) it'd be perfect. Because if they didn't tech bounce then Tager could potentially re-juggle them off the ground before they could do a regular ground tech.

Why didn't they just make it like this in the first place. Ugh.

[Manta]

He's a slow and cumbersome character, he needs the best pokes and close range game to compensate for the fact he lacks what everyone else takes for granted. Being at +0 in front of tager should have the odds stacked against you no matter who you are. Magnetism isn't enough of a tool to deal with that, since all of his attractive moves are too slow to really be reliable, if you want to keep him distinct from Potemkin, how's about we bring in some more guard breaking? Here's my personal wishlist:

6B: make this fast, like, 4D fast. I'd quite happily let go of the fatal property if it were to do this instead. Again with the primer break.

j.2C: make this move safe of block goddamn, or better yet, make it unblockable if Tager falls more than a certain height.

6A: When holding the move, press B to cancel the move altogether. That way we have a way to pull people in without committing to a really unsafe move on whiff.

Some Frame advantage on his basic normals would be good too, I'm looking at you, 5D and 2D.

Some way to reliably hit people who are airborne right in front of Tager's face, right now all he can do is block and 2C is too slow and without enough head invulnerability.

[WolfCrimson]

Guard breaking's already been taken care of... kinda:

New 2C>6B gatling means you can go to 5D from 6B after breaking a primer with 2C, which means you'd be +2 on block, and they're closer to you thanks to 5D's pull. You can restart pressure with 5A>5b>2B and go into 2C again to take a primer and mix it up with 2C>4D or 2C>3C. You can say that they can poke you out of the 6B overhead, well, that's true. But you can also commit to 4D and stay safe, AND now with the new 5-frame 360B (punishable only on IB...or reversal) you give them a reason to be scared. And dude, 6B overhead at the speed of 4D? That's way too fast.

Your 6A~B cancel is a brilliant idea on its own, but if we couple that with slide head>mag floor follow-up, wouldn't it be too powerful? We have to choose one of the two.

I thought j2C was safe? *Checks frame data* Make it a lvl 5 move. Making it unblockable at a certain height (Tager can only go as high as his super-jump, anyway) would main Tager mirrors becomes an elbow-fest.

5D already has +2 frame advantage, while 2D has -1.

What about 2A as anti-air? Making it AUB would be good, with faster start-up at 7 frames. And more untechable time to be able to combo afterwards.

PS. I thought Mag was to bring them closer, not deal with them when they're already up-close?

Edited June 16, 2011 by WolfCrimson

[Darlos9D]

I've always felt like the new 6A was basically Tager's Hammer Fall, in a weird reverse sort of way. Making it cancellable by hitting B would pretty much complete the deal, and I support the notion.

I agree that j.2C should probably be better. It's so similar to Rachel's, which she can cancel out of, is generally safe on block, and has special properties if it hits from really hi up. Why can't we get some shit like that?

[WolfCrimson]

Making it level 5 would make it safe, I think. I'm surprised at how a huge 500 kg cyborg under the momentum of gravity elbow dropping someone is only a level 4 attack. I suggest also giving it fatal counter property, Tager's current fatals (2C and 6B) don't really see that much use. 6B has bad initial proration and 2C is... well, it's good, but situational.

Edited June 16, 2011 by WolfCrimson