I'm seriously disappointed with the nerfs that came Rachel's way. She was a strong character, but not even close to the boundaries of being broken. At least for my experience when playing against her in a mirror match, she doesn't give off a feel of hopelessness that you get when going toe-to-toe against v13 or arakune.
J2C:
As for all the changes involved with this, she loses a lot of her potential to apply pressure on her opponents. Rachel was made to be defensive in the first place since she takes a lot of damage and has very little counter-attack options, and even less effective ones. To compensate for this she was given a good high-low options to take advantage when she is given an opportunity to. Ragna and Noel will completely (for the lack of words to better express myself, mods, please forgive me) f*** her up in the a** without lube, HARD. With these changes, the high-low mixup game goes down the drain. Making J2C more punishable than it already is, will leave her widely open when blocked or avoided. - - gg arksys.
Lobelia:
when I saw that they were going to increase recovery time, I just shook my head. As if it had a good recovery time in the first place. so the standard 5B,CD,5C,236B,22C or 632146C (and the rest of its more complex variations) now goes down the drain? So, first you can't combo to or from a Frog and now you can't combo into a Lobelia setup? Really? - - So I suppose arksys thought that one zoning character wasn't enough, and decided to add a new, but inferior one to its ranks? Rachel's combo game just went completely down the drain... She no longer deserves the title as "Head of the Alucard Family." Her butler Valhaym would probably woop her ass till kingdom come.
6B & 6A:
The bad only becomes worse... 2 of her high priority moves were completely revamped.
- 6B was mainly for the poking game to punish those overly aggressive chars on a counter. It is also one of her main tools give her that "window of opportunity" as I mentioned previously about Rachel's waiting game playstyle. Not being able to do her BB combos after this poke isn't really well justified. Seeing as the recovery for this move isn't exactly the best and is punishable with really devastating combos, and this moves comes with the risk of increasing her hitbox and leaving her open to counter DD finishes
- 6A, mainly used as her anti air, will now lose to most jump in attacks. I guess Arakune will now have his way with Rachel more than he used to. great, just great...
Pumpkin:
the only thing i will miss with the changes applied to it is the fact that i wont be able to trade off with Nu anymore, and the sword combo will shred Rachel players more than it already did in the past. Although, I may be wrong since I heard Nu (or Lambda) received some nasty nerfs too.
The Frog:
Now has it's own life meter - that's fine
Shorter activation range - this is a reasonable nerf, although I will miss its ability to catch mid-to-low airborne characters for a setup.
No longer activates while the opponent is down - I'm assuming that this is the change that refers to Rachel not being able to combo off a frog...this is probably what hurts the most, as it greatly affects Rachel's combo potential.
The frog no longer jumps - i'm quite undecided with this since I am seeing potential with it especially when you have a pumpkin out, about to throw lobelia and a frog sliding at decent speeds. although the fact that it crawls at snails pace definitely is bad
Cannot summon another frog while one is active - corner trap now goes bye-bye. This is primarily one of the reasons why Rachel was a strong character. And this is definitely why she was a goddess at corners, probably only 2nd to Arakune's corner bell+bug trap. This was what defined Rachel as one of the chars at the top, and now that it's gone a major source of her playstyle's strength go down the drain.
Combo damage:
with the exception of stacking poles and 2x baden baden lily, most of Rachel's combo damage, isn't as strong as people make them to be. In comparison to the combos dealt by Ragna, Noel loops, Arakune cursed combos, Jin pressure, V13 rapids and/or counters, Litchi mid-screens and even Tager's various simple combos, the damage Rachel deals in while in combo mode is below average. It's her potential to mixup, trap and pressure on a combo reset is what makes her strong... but not the damage.
What was arksys thinking? They turned every good thing about Rachel laughable. Did they have a grudge against her or something? Maybe implementing some of these changes was okay to balance out character strengths...BUT TO TAKE ALL OF HER POSITIVES and throw it out the garbage can, is what left me speechless, disappointed and pissed, all at the same time. I guess, I am ranting or whining, but what arksys did to my fav player was severe injustice.
