Data Patch 1.1.5. Let's Discuss The New MK

[MKchouy]

I feel like I'm the only one not optimistic about this new patch.

Fair does not seem safe on shield even when spaced well despite what I've heard, whiffed fair is still pretty punishable and the range is not good enough to make up for it imo. Although it sets up now, I rarely find myself actually landing one in neutral. I can't see MK staying top tier after this patch, he's feeling almost midtier right now. I hope I'm wrong though.

Abadango was consistently losing matches with MK earlier on stream today against wifi people too. Sorry for the negativity but just putting my thoughts out there.

 

[Amadeus9]

I feel like I'm the only one not optimistic about this new patch.

Fair does not seem safe on shield even when spaced well despite what I've heard, whiffed fair is still pretty punishable and the range is not good enough to make up for it imo. Although it sets up now, I rarely find myself actually landing one in neutral. I can't see MK staying top tier after this patch, he's feeling almost midtier right now. I hope I'm wrong though.

Abadango was consistently losing matches with MK earlier on stream today against wifi people too. Sorry for the negativity but just putting my thoughts out there.

abadango was playing 1.1.4 knight. mk is basically a new character now.

 

[CaptainVul]

I feel like I'm the only one not optimistic about this new patch.

Fair does not seem safe on shield even when spaced well despite what I've heard, whiffed fair is still pretty punishable and the range is not good enough to make up for it imo. Although it sets up now, I rarely find myself actually landing one in neutral. I can't see MK staying top tier after this patch, he's feeling almost midtier right now. I hope I'm wrong though.

Abadango was consistently losing matches with MK earlier on stream today against wifi people too. Sorry for the negativity but just putting my thoughts out there.

I just think people are just not trying to show how disappointed they are. I can't imagine how any MK main could possibly think this wasn't a huge nerf unless they weren't good at doing the Up Air strings to begin with lol.

I don't even main MK and I'm pretty upset lol. But there is some truth to the positivity, MK isn't completely ruined, hes just not Top 10 anymore. And its only Day 1 after the patch and people are finding alot of cool new stuff.

 

[Amadeus9]

I just think people are just not trying to show how disappointed they are. I can't imagine how any MK main could possibly think this wasn't a huge nerf unless they weren't good at doing the Up Air strings to begin with lol.

I don't even main MK and I'm pretty upset lol. But there is some truth to the positivity, MK isn't completely ruined, hes just not Top 10 anymore. And its only Day 1 after the patch and people are finding alot of cool new stuff.

MK is probably a better fighter overall than before

 

[Zeriora]

MK is probably a better fighter overall than before

I wouldn't say better, but just abit worse.. but still good.

 

[Triburos]

Was discussing this over on the sub-reddit, seeing as how MK is my main.

Honestly, my only question is; can you or can you not DI out of his U-Airs?

If this is true, MK took a huge blow. I'd even argue it to be the biggest nerf to a character in this game so far. You can point to the Diddy nerfs all yah want, but he still has good neutral.

If you take away MK's main combo ability but leave him with his one dimensional approach game that basically boils down to charging the opponent one of two ways, that more or less guarantees that MK is gonna drop in competitive.

While sure I've seen alot of theory craft combos such as this, it's too situational for it to be a completely viable replacement; requiring too much ground and assumes you're always on a Final Destination without any complex stage elements.

Not to mention, these things were possible from even before the patch for the most part.


But now for my optimistic side; if DI isn't harming U-Airs much, MK got buffed. Plain and simple.

Don't wanna suicide from an Up-B if you land a foot near the edge and want to U-Air carry? You can reverse the innitial trajectory of your first U-Air and keep the carry going towards center stage. No chance of stock sacrifice.

Wanna carry them off-stage? You can end with N-Air or F-Air with a fair chance of killing. Want something with a higher chance of killing but not a true link after your final U-Air? Tornado. You can make it back to stage.

So you now have the option of carrying em off stage OR reversing trajectory from the edge and carrying them back to middle. And he got lowered endlag on F-Air to boot.


But again, this is all assuming U-Airs are still inescapable. I don't know yet.

Lastly, to the person who commented on Abadango losing a handful of Wifi matches, keep in mind that it does take time to adjust to large changes in trajectory, and MK's entire game hinges on how well you can link his combos. If Abadango was struggling with the new trajectories and couldn't get his combos off, that's my guess as to atleast a chunk of his losses. Doesn't mean MK is trash now, we just need a period to make mental and muscle adjustments.

Give it some time.

 

[Zeriora]

Was discussing this over on the sub-reddit, seeing as how MK is my main.

Honestly, my only question is; can you or can you not DI out of his U-Airs?

If this is true, MK took a huge blow. I'd even argue it to be the biggest nerf to a character in this game so far. You can point to the Diddy nerfs all yah want, but he still has good neutral.

If you take away MK's main combo ability but leave him with his one dimensional approach game that basically boils down to charging the opponent one of two ways, that more or less guarantees that MK is gonna drop in competitive.

While sure I've seen alot of theory craft combos such as this, it's too situational for it to be a completely viable replacement; requiring too much ground and assumes you're always on a Final Destination without any complex stage elements.

Not to mention, these things were possible from even before the patch for the most part.


But now for my optimistic side; if DI isn't harming U-Airs much, MK got buffed. Plain and simple.

Don't wanna suicide from an Up-B if you land a foot near the edge and want to U-Air carry? You can reverse the innitial trajectory of your first U-Air and keep the carry going towards center stage. No chance of stock sacrifice.

Wanna carry them off-stage? You can end with N-Air or F-Air with a fair chance of killing. Want something with a higher chance of killing but not a true link after your final U-Air? Tornado. You can make it back to stage.

So you now have the option of carrying em off stage OR reversing trajectory from the edge and carrying them back to middle. And he got lowered endlag on F-Air to boot.


But again, this is all assuming U-Airs are still inescapable. I don't know yet.

Lastly, to the person who commented on Abadango losing a handful of Wifi matches, keep in mind that it does take time to adjust to large changes in trajectory, and MK's entire game hinges on how well you can link his combos. If Abadango was struggling with the new trajectories and couldn't get his combos off, that's my guess as to atleast a chunk of his losses. Doesn't mean MK is trash now, we just need a period to make mental and muscle adjustments.

Give it some time.

I'm finding it VERY hard to even land an up air on someone.. It was never like this.

 

[Amadeus9]

Was discussing this over on the sub-reddit, seeing as how MK is my main.

Honestly, my only question is; can you or can you not DI out of his U-Airs?

If this is true, MK took a huge blow. I'd even argue it to be the biggest nerf to a character in this game so far. You can point to the Diddy nerfs all yah want, but he still has good neutral.

If you take away MK's main combo ability but leave him with his one dimensional approach game that basically boils down to charging the opponent one of two ways, that more or less guarantees that MK is gonna drop in competitive.

While sure I've seen alot of theory craft combos such as this, it's too situational for it to be a completely viable replacement; requiring too much ground and assumes you're always on a Final Destination without any complex stage elements.

Not to mention, these things were possible from even before the patch for the most part.


But now for my optimistic side; if DI isn't harming U-Airs much, MK got buffed. Plain and simple.

Don't wanna suicide from an Up-B if you land a foot near the edge and want to U-Air carry? You can reverse the innitial trajectory of your first U-Air and keep the carry going towards center stage. No chance of stock sacrifice.

Wanna carry them off-stage? You can end with N-Air or F-Air with a fair chance of killing. Want something with a higher chance of killing but not a true link after your final U-Air? Tornado. You can make it back to stage.

So you now have the option of carrying em off stage OR reversing trajectory from the edge and carrying them back to middle. And he got lowered endlag on F-Air to boot.


But again, this is all assuming U-Airs are still inescapable. I don't know yet.

Lastly, to the person who commented on Abadango losing a handful of Wifi matches, keep in mind that it does take time to adjust to large changes in trajectory, and MK's entire game hinges on how well you can link his combos. If Abadango was struggling with the new trajectories and couldn't get his combos off, that's my guess as to atleast a chunk of his losses. Doesn't mean MK is trash now, we just need a period to make mental and muscle adjustments.

Give it some time.

Something big to note is that due to the lower knockback of the move, people do not enter tumble state until extremely high percents, which means that their DI has minimal effect!

 

[Jamurai]

It's quite simple really: Meta Knight is/was not "Uair combo: the character" like a not-so-surprising amount of people believe. Far from it. And even then, it's not completely gone anyway.

Why are you guys giving up? It's not even been two days. We gained a lot of new options this patch, losing a kill combo that we're used to doesn't automatically mean it's a "huge nerf". My god. Even top players are exhibiting this mentality which is frankly disappointing.

 

[Perris6]

Idk if anyone has posted this yet, but we can't give up. We'll find a solution!

 

[MKchouy]

abadango was playing 1.1.4 knight. mk is basically a new character now.

He was playing 1.1.5 MK yesterday, there is no way to play 1.1.4 MK on wifi anymore, hence why he was getting bodied by randoms on wifi.

I think MK will still have new combos to come out, but he will never be as threatening as he was pre-patch. I just wish Sakurai didn't take the lazy way of patching MK in completely changing uair. They could have just changed uair to 4%/lower knockback w/o changing trajectory so it didn't kill off dash attack and it would not kill until later percents.

Despite nerfs, Sheik, Cloud, Bayo, Diddy and ZSS will all still be top tier and play relatively the same. MK it seems they just didn't care and nerfed his main threat. It shows they somewhat care about the competitive scene though because no casual MK player death combos people, even high skilled players usually cant death combo unless they specifically play MK. So if they care about the scene at all, I don't know why they were so careless with the patch (he didn't even need one).

Again sorry for the negativity, I hope he stays good, I just think people underestimate the nerf even though he got a fair buff.

I think we'll just have to wait and see tourney results from JBand, Ito, Tyrant ect to see how bad this really was.

 

[Freakzoid9000MS]

At first, I saw this as a nerf with MK. It made me want to backhand Sakurai for murdering my baby. But now, I believe MK got buffed in a way. While we can't 0 to death as consistently as we used to, it doesn't mean MK is automatically Palutena with heavenly light tier (which is basically Zelda tier Kappa). We still can rufio people with our kill combo and we can combo horizontal now with people camping near the ledge which gives us better combo opportunity. We also received a better neutral with the buff to Fair making it have less lag. We desperately needed some kind of buff like that to improve our mediocre neutral. Also, this nerf will separate the MK players from the frauds that jumped on the bandwagon just because of his dumb ztd. And remember, other top tiers got nerfed as well so we aren't the only ones that suffered, except for a certain someone *cough* *cough* Bayonetta *cough*. I would like to rant more but I'll save that for later.

 

[Drippy]

He was playing 1.1.5 MK yesterday, there is no way to play 1.1.4 MK on wifi anymore, hence why he was getting bodied by randoms on wifi.

He meant that Meta Knight is different now, his playstyle has drastically changed. A lot of MK players are still trying to play him like in 1.1.4 (prepatch) and have not yet adjusted to a new way of playing him. It's only been a day so I have no opinion.

 

[Twisted_Jokerr]

Is Uair to Dair true? If so, then that could mean a very intriguing mix up game.

 

[CaptainVul]

I just can't believe how anyone can think MK is better now. I'm not even trying to be negative but come on guys don't delude yourself.

I've been using MK since release so I was playing MK before they discovered the Up Air strings and everyone pretty much agreed that MK was probably high mid tier at the highest. But after MK Leo came along and especially after that Japanese tournament when Abadango beat Nairo 3-1 I'm pretty sure most people had MK as Top 5 potentially in the game because of how easily and how quickly he could end stocks and completely turn a game around no matter how big the deficit was by just hitting your opponent with 1 dash attack at the right percent.

Now after the patch MK is definitely not Top 5 anymore, I know that much. But the good part is that during the time that MK was top tier the character was explored almost fully inside and out and all of the innovations for MK that weren't related to Up Air strings arent going anywhere. And we're already seeing the innovations people have come up with based around MK's new Up Air and Fair.

And unlike most characters with a lot of unexplored potential, there are still a lot of great players still playing Meta-Knight so I could definitely see him still maintaining his high tier status or slightly fall to high mid tier at the lowest because of good tournament results. But also during the time that MK was probably the scariest character in the game players were dedicated to learn how to play against Meta-Knight so they wouldn't just die at 30%, and that's basically to play super defensive and campy against a character with one of the most linear and predictable neutral games out of the entire cast. But what made MK players still prevail was that their enemy only needed to slip up once for MK to still just kill them with Up Air strings anyway. But now that it's gone that type of playstyle against Meta-Knight is WAY more viable. But a good thing is that now that MK isn't as threatening to your opponent for slipping up once, maybe people will start playing less scared and campy against Meta-Knight which would make MK a lot easier to play as in most matchups lol.

But hey this is just how I feel about it truthfully. I'm not dropping MK at all though and I most likely never will, because I'm a huge fan of the Kirby series and love all of its characters and I believe MK is still good, but I do believe that this character is obviously not better and did take a big hit by losing his Deus Ex Machina.

 

[Amadeus9]

I just can't believe how anyone can think MK is better now. I'm not even trying to be negative but come on guys don't delude yourself.

I've been using MK since release so I was playing MK before they discovered the Up Air strings and everyone pretty much agreed that MK was probably high mid tier at the highest. But after MK Leo came along and especially after that Japanese tournament when Abadango beat Nairo 3-1 I'm pretty sure most people had MK as Top 5 potentially in the game because of how easily and how quickly he could end stocks and completely turn a game around no matter how big the deficit was by just hitting your opponent with 1 dash attack at the right percent.

Now after the patch MK is definitely not Top 5 anymore, I know that much. But the good part is that during the time that MK was top tier the character was explored almost fully inside and out and all of the innovations for MK that weren't related to Up Air strings arent going anywhere. And we're already seeing the innovations people have come up with based around MK's new Up Air and Fair.

And unlike most characters with a lot of unexplored potential, there are still a lot of great players still playing Meta-Knight so I could definitely see him still maintaining his high tier status or slightly fall to high mid tier at the lowest because of good tournament results. But also during the time that MK was probably the scariest character in the game players were dedicated to learn how to play against Meta-Knight so they wouldn't just die at 30%, and that's basically to play super defensive and campy against a character with one of the most linear and predictable neutral games out of the entire cast. But what made MK players still prevail was that their enemy only needed to slip up once for MK to still just kill them with Up Air strings anyway. But now that it's gone that type of playstyle against Meta-Knight is WAY more viable. But a good thing is that now that MK isn't as threatening to your opponent for slipping up once, maybe people will start playing less scared and campy against Meta-Knight which would make MK a lot easier to play as in most matchups lol.

But hey this is just how I feel about it truthfully. I'm not dropping MK at all though and I most likely never will, because I'm a huge fan of the Kirby series and love all of its characters and I believe MK is still good, but I do believe that this character is obviously not better and did take a big hit by losing his Deus Ex Machina.

How about you chill the **** out and spare me your "i played mk before you" sob story. No, you didn't.

I have given clear reasons about why i think mk is as good or better than before. You just whined about nerfs.

Also I'm not sure you have even played the new patch yet because death combos are still very much possible. We have other stuff now, too. Thats the difference.

 

[Grimtixx]

Thanks, can you tell me what the combos are, and also, is he still top 10? Still maining him no matter what, just wondering.

Edit: Also, would you say he's worse or better, and if he's worse how much worse?

Well, for starters, his forward air has four frames removed from his landing lag, which makes it pretty safe on shield if spaced and fast-falled. The first two hits can also set up for a dash attack, dash grab and/or a tech chase. Upair has different properties that send the player more sideways than upwards so short hop upair is much more useful than before, especially out of a downthrow at low percents. You can still do stuff like dthrow- Sh upair - fast fall to the ground and uptilt, and juggle with upairs and finish with an up-b, fair or nair for a juicy 50-60% combo. It can even kill rosa at 15%, so we still destroy her. Overall MK doesn't feel restricted to one combo to be effective anymore, with many new options opening up that are just as deadly as the elevator. The combos I listed are just the tip of the iceberg and more are being discovered as we speak. Now on to your second question.

Is MK still top 10? I definitely believe that MK is still top 10 because of several factors. For example, MK's worst matchups got nerfed even harder than we did, mainly sheik and ZSS. Unlike them, we received a small but significant buff to make up for our nerf that gives us a new toy to play with in neutral. Also, the "new dominant characters" are arguably bayo, cloud and rosa and MK does much better against those characters than he did against pre-patch sheik and ZSS. Due to MK's changes, he is less linear than he once was and can mixup his combo game much better. As for your final question, I would say he's just as good as pre-patch but for different reasons. The only thing is that his playstyle is much different than it was, and we still have to get used to the new and improved MK.

TL;DR: more diverse combos, top tier threats becoming less threatening, less linear, various kill confirms are still there.

 

[CaptainVul]

How about you chill the **** out and spare me your "i played mk before you" sob story. No, you didn't.

I have given clear reasons about why i think mk is as good or better than before. You just whined about nerfs.

Also I'm not sure you have even played the new patch yet because death combos are still very much possible. We have other stuff now, too. Thats the difference.

Chill? I'm completely calm maybe you should calm down a bit because everything I said is completely rational and multiple Meta-Knight players agree with me, and I didn't mention that part to say that I know more about MK than anyone that was literally what the community agreed upon at that time. Or am I wrong? Did people think MK was Top 5 before MK Leo came along? I'm pretty sure the answer is no, I was just giving history in my post for reference to MK's growth on the tier list because of his death combos.

And dude its not like I'm saying anything blasphemous, you can even watch that JBAndrew video that someone just posted, hes basically saying everything I just said

But hey I'm not here to argue with anyone, I'm just posting my honest thoughts.

 

[Grimtixx]

I just can't believe how anyone can think MK is better now. I'm not even trying to be negative but come on guys don't delude yourself.

I've been using MK since release so I was playing MK before they discovered the Up Air strings and everyone pretty much agreed that MK was probably high mid tier at the highest. But after MK Leo came along and especially after that Japanese tournament when Abadango beat Nairo 3-1 I'm pretty sure most people had MK as Top 5 potentially in the game because of how easily and how quickly he could end stocks and completely turn a game around no matter how big the deficit was by just hitting your opponent with 1 dash attack at the right percent.

Now after the patch MK is definitely not Top 5 anymore, I know that much. But the good part is that during the time that MK was top tier the character was explored almost fully inside and out and all of the innovations for MK that weren't related to Up Air strings arent going anywhere. And we're already seeing the innovations people have come up with based around MK's new Up Air and Fair.

And unlike most characters with a lot of unexplored potential, there are still a lot of great players still playing Meta-Knight so I could definitely see him still maintaining his high tier status or slightly fall to high mid tier at the lowest because of good tournament results. But also during the time that MK was probably the scariest character in the game players were dedicated to learn how to play against Meta-Knight so they wouldn't just die at 30%, and that's basically to play super defensive and campy against a character with one of the most linear and predictable neutral games out of the entire cast. But what made MK players still prevail was that their enemy only needed to slip up once for MK to still just kill them with Up Air strings anyway. But now that it's gone that type of playstyle against Meta-Knight is WAY more viable. But a good thing is that now that MK isn't as threatening to your opponent for slipping up once, maybe people will start playing less scared and campy against Meta-Knight which would make MK a lot easier to play as in most matchups lol.

But hey this is just how I feel about it truthfully. I'm not dropping MK at all though and I most likely never will, because I'm a huge fan of the Kirby series and love all of its characters and I believe MK is still good, but I do believe that this character is obviously not better and did take a big hit by losing his Deus Ex Machina.

It's not that MK is better than before, but it's the fact that he is much more diverse than before and therefore he is more difficult to read. As much as I liked the old upair combo, it was a crutch that gave MK a reputation for being a one trick pony. We have new tools to play with that give us more requirements necessary to be a top tier pick, and the more severe nerfs to other top tiers also helps our case as well. MK is different, but he's still miles better than any high tier character.

 

[ZTD | TECHnology]

Let's be real: No matter how much damage our strings and combos do right now, nothing beats being able to just flat out take the stock from the punish. But thanks to Fair, we gained a new neutral tool as well as a new setup tools which is honestly a nice change. Is it equivalent to losing the ability to Death Combo any character consistently? Nope. But it's a great change and we're still looking at a very strong character. I do not believe he's as dangerous as before but he is far more diverse now; which is great. I would call this patch a nerf but not nearly as dramatic as people think. Honestly, we probably weren't meant to have Death Combos anyway.

I was originally upset about losing consistent Death Combos on the cast but I'll take this trade. The frauds still step off to other characters and we can go back to having a diverse and innovative combo game. We take those. All the people thinking MK is dead are really misinformed/ignorant. You'll see.

 

[CaptainVul]

It's not that MK is better than before, but it's the fact that he is much more diverse than before and therefore he is more difficult to read. As much as I liked the old upair combo, it was a crutch that gave MK a reputation for being a one trick pony. We have new tools to play with that give us more requirements necessary to be a top tier pick, and the more severe nerfs to other top tiers also helps our case as well. MK is different, but he's still miles better than any high tier character.

I agree for the most part but what I don't agree with is that so far I don't think MK is any more diverse than he was before. Meta-Knight players will end up getting their kills in different ways now because they're FORCED to instead of having the option to do his kill combo. No one ever forced players to fish for dash attacks all game to get their kills from Up Air strings which gave MK the reputation of being a one trick pony, Meta-Knight players just did it because it was their best option to get the kill more often than not.

But what I do agree with is that this patch is going to make Meta-Knight more diverse because it will change the MINDSET and neutral of Meta-Knight players because now they aren't forced to have any reason to want to go for dash attacks -> up air strings all game which was part of the reason why Meta-Knight's neutral was so predictable.
So yeah I agree in a sense.

 

[CaptainVul]

Let's be real: No matter how much damage our strings and combos do right now, nothing beats being able to just flat out take the stock from the punish. But thanks to Fair, we gained a new neutral tool as well as a new setup tools which is honestly a nice change. Is it equivalent to losing the ability to Death Combo any character consistently? Nope. But it's a great change and we're still looking at a very strong character. I do not believe he's as dangerous as before but he is far more diverse now; which is great. I would call this patch a nerf but not nearly as dramatic as people think. Honestly, we probably weren't meant to have Death Combos anyway.

I was originally upset about losing consistent Death Combos on the cast but I'll take this trade. The frauds still step off to other characters and we can go back to having a diverse and innovative combo game. We take those. All the people thinking MK is dead are really misinformed/ignorant. You'll see.

Pretty much how I feel as well, and the point I was trying to get across lol

 

[Grimtixx]

I agree for the most part but what I don't agree with is that so far I don't think MK is any more diverse than he was before. Meta-Knight players will end up getting their kills in different ways now because they're FORCED to instead of having the option to do his kill combo. No one ever forced players to fish for dash attacks all game to get their kills from Up Air strings which gave MK the reputation of being a one trick pony, Meta-Knight players just did it because it was their best option to get the kill more often than not.

But what I do agree with is that this patch is going to make Meta-Knight more diverse because it will change the MINDSET and neutral of Meta-Knight players because now they aren't forced to have any reason to want to go for dash attacks -> up air strings all game which was part of the reason why Meta-Knight's neutral was so predictable.
So yeah I agree in a sense.

I also agree to an extent with your sentiment on the death combo. People like Abadango played so linearly with MK because that combo was so deadly. While we can still do it to some characters, namely Rosa, the combo is largely gone and we have to get
creative with our kills. Good thing our ever-deadly edguarding game and our new forward air give us the tools to do just that.

 

[ZTD | TECHnology]

The main thing to consider is that this is day 2, so many things could change as Meta Knights and others discover new tools. People really just need to stop speculating and just play and contribute. Talking about the **** is pointless right now. This is a new (old) Meta Knight. Deal with it and let's get better.

 

[CaptainVul]

I also agree to an extent with your sentiment on the death combo. People like Abadango played so linearly with MK because that combo was so deadly. While we can still do it to some characters, namely Rosa, the combo is largely gone and we have to get
creative with our kills. Good thing our ever-deadly edguarding game and our new forward air give us the tools to do just that.

Yup I agree

The main thing to consider is that this is day 2, so many things could change as Meta Knights and others discover new tools. People really just need to stop speculating and just play and contribute. Talking about the **** is pointless right now. This is a new (old) Meta Knight. Deal with it and let's get better.

I also agree with this, nothing is really going to be solved by just talking about it but I was sharing my thoughts on the nerf as of right now which is Day 2. Like i was saying earlier I already see promising stuff from MK players and I've even been working on some stuff, and one of my most important points from before was that there are still great players playing MK so innovations will be made regardless. I'm hoping we see some more crazy stuff as time goes on.

 

[Triburos]

It's not that MK is better than before, but it's the fact that he is much more diverse than before and therefore he is more difficult to read. As much as I liked the old upair combo, it was a crutch that gave MK a reputation for being a one trick pony. We have new tools to play with that give us more requirements necessary to be a top tier pick, and the more severe nerfs to other top tiers also helps our case as well. MK is different, but he's still miles better than any high tier character.

Well, I could just be talking for myself here but typically, I gravitate towards the easiest options with highest payoffs in competitive.

The main reason is because the easier your tool, the less likely nerves or other distractions have to mess with you. This also applies to online battles.

While I'm all for new innovations in MK's combo game, so far dismissing his U-Airs hasn't shown me anything promising that couldn't be done before the patch for the most part. And the reason that MK wasn't known for his other combos is because U-Air to Up-B had the better payout in terms of effort. If that's gone, then I think we'll have to backpedal to things like B-Air >> FF > Jab Lock, just as an example. Which isn't bad or anything, it just takes alot more effort, alot more ground, relies on them not teching, stage types and a few other things.

I will say this though; MK always struck me as a character who should be able to set up for insane edge guard situations, NOT a character involving 20%~ to death combos. And the patch seemed to help with that so, that's good.

But what I worry about most is; will his new options be a worth while pay-off to his mediocre neutral game? Sure, F-Air lost some land lag, but it's not exactly the safest thing to just throw out even still. He's still one dimensional in terms of neutral, so I feel that his options should still adequitely award him for actually being able to get in.

I won't drop him regardless, but yeah- it's all about balancing a good reward for his poor neutral and approach game. But hell, we'll see. Hasn't been enough time to determine if his old bread and butter is truly dead. Which I doubt. I know for a fact it's not gone completely, but 20 to deaths might be.

 

[Ghidorah14]

And remember, other top tiers got nerfed as well so we aren't the only ones that suffered, except for a certain someone *cough* *cough* Bayonetta *cough*. I would like to rant more but I'll save that for later.

Bayo did get nerfed. Witch time now has more endlag, the slowdown effect doesnt last as long, and there is a higher length penalty every time it's used.

Plus, her sideB+kick and dair have more endlag.

 

[ZTD | TECHnology]

Bayonetta's nerfs are almost useless. If anything, she probably got stronger with the nerfs to several of the top tier threats.

 

[TheGoodGuava]

So I had the chance to test out his new up air combos last night with DI
Dash attack is no longer what you want to use to set up for the upair to death combos because its much easier to DI. Uptilt on the other hand makes it a lot harder. I was able to get 2 or 3 up airs into shuttle loop to death at around 25 (tested on rosa), 32 (tested on robin) and 40 (tested on link), with them DIing out although it was a lot harder to do than before. Tested on Jiggs as a joke and I couldn't do it at all. No DI or DI in is exactly the same as before. There's still a lot more mixups MK is able to do now with his new up air, while we were playing actual games I got 4 up airs to drill rush off the side from an airdodge read at like 20, MK still has potential so lets try our hardest to actually use it

 

[Steelballray]

People seem to just be able to do DI away and thats it for the traditional stairway, although I feel the new uair is nicer for going one uair to shuttle loop at higher %s. I played for a couple of hours with a friend and thats what I felt.

 

[Ghidorah14]

People seem to just be able to do DI away and thats it for the traditional stairway, although I feel the new uair is nicer for going one uair to shuttle loop at higher %s. I played for a couple of hours with a friend and thats what I felt.

Yeah, it feels less like a death combo and more like a kill confirm. The angle for the new upair is actually perfect for an upB followup.

It's kinda funny how for me at least, I kinda stopped playing MK and posting on the social when he started becoming upair combo the character, but now that it's nerfed, I'm active again. lol.

 

[Vhaltz]

I've been able to replicate some degree of upair combos with 2-3 upairs to upB on random online players, while going for the combo at 4+ upairs percents usually ended up with losing the string. It appears that reducing the number of upairs to a minimum is the way to go now for kill confirms.

 

[Steelballray]

By the way, at low %s, if you want damage, you can still do uair ff uair ff uair x?? then Nair or UpB if you want damage. You can do them at the regular old %s, so the work of whoever did that list isn't lost. :b it obviously won't kill tho

 

[RosalinA]

People seem to just be able to do DI away and thats it for the traditional stairway, although I feel the new uair is nicer for going one uair to shuttle loop at higher %s. I played for a couple of hours with a friend and thats what I felt.

Were you ever successful in getting two up-airs in, just curious.

 

[MKchouy]

Does the fair buff really do anything for his neutral?

I tried using it a lot yesterday and spaced optimally and FFed it still did not seem safe on shield. It also wasn't safe on whiff for sure. Glad it leads into new setups but I found it hard to land at all. MK always had these uair->dair mixups as well, it's just the death combo was more optimal. I don't really feel threatening anymore with MK

 

[New_Dumal]

I don`t think he is actually bad, and the Sheik MU was really scarier before, but...
There`s no way MK is better right now.
I`ve came back from a tourney and I can`t count so many times the old UAir string could end the opponents stocks MUCH earlier.
It`s not that bad, I used him almost all matches (my main character was Sheik, never will touch her again) and the Fair buff was great at 2 or 3 MU`s, because people don`t expect it. (I got 4th )
But that`s the problem too ... I got kills with S.Loop of ONE Uair at higher %`s, a lot of kill`s reading airdodges from UAirs... but all these kill were taken because people were waiting the old MK. When people realize they don`t need to fear him taking her stocks with UAir string at low percents and do what they can/should do, MK punish game will be completely worse.

I will main him now, since I dropped Sheik, but I'm not much into the idea of him being top10 at the game anymore.
At this point, nobody really knows what the meta is about.
I can't put in words how much I hated this patch, and this "New UAir".
My main was sheik, MK was my secondary, and I was training Cloud lately. Completely hitted by this.
I will lab with the new Uair this week and if I found something usefull, I'll let everybody know... cause we're in need of options.

 

[Triburos]

Can anyone confirm if B-Air true combos after a U-Air or not?

Because that's pretty cool. I've seen the combo done, just not sure if it's true or not. The trajectory is right, MK just has to angle the hit of U-Air right so that the trajectory sets them into the B-Air's position from what I understand.

Again, pretty nifty, and I'm interested in it as a platform for future combos.

 

[Zeriora]

I just can't believe how anyone can think MK is better now. I'm not even trying to be negative but come on guys don't delude yourself.

I've been using MK since release so I was playing MK before they discovered the Up Air strings and everyone pretty much agreed that MK was probably high mid tier at the highest. But after MK Leo came along and especially after that Japanese tournament when Abadango beat Nairo 3-1 I'm pretty sure most people had MK as Top 5 potentially in the game because of how easily and how quickly he could end stocks and completely turn a game around no matter how big the deficit was by just hitting your opponent with 1 dash attack at the right percent.

Now after the patch MK is definitely not Top 5 anymore, I know that much. But the good part is that during the time that MK was top tier the character was explored almost fully inside and out and all of the innovations for MK that weren't related to Up Air strings arent going anywhere. And we're already seeing the innovations people have come up with based around MK's new Up Air and Fair.

And unlike most characters with a lot of unexplored potential, there are still a lot of great players still playing Meta-Knight so I could definitely see him still maintaining his high tier status or slightly fall to high mid tier at the lowest because of good tournament results. But also during the time that MK was probably the scariest character in the game players were dedicated to learn how to play against Meta-Knight so they wouldn't just die at 30%, and that's basically to play super defensive and campy against a character with one of the most linear and predictable neutral games out of the entire cast. But what made MK players still prevail was that their enemy only needed to slip up once for MK to still just kill them with Up Air strings anyway. But now that it's gone that type of playstyle against Meta-Knight is WAY more viable. But a good thing is that now that MK isn't as threatening to your opponent for slipping up once, maybe people will start playing less scared and campy against Meta-Knight which would make MK a lot easier to play as in most matchups lol.

But hey this is just how I feel about it truthfully. I'm not dropping MK at all though and I most likely never will, because I'm a huge fan of the Kirby series and love all of its characters and I believe MK is still good, but I do believe that this character is obviously not better and did take a big hit by losing his Deus Ex Machina.

I've used the strings ever since JTAILS comp tutorial, and let me say this, What was most of the characters tiers on 3ds days? Sheik's were spammers, so were meta knights, This is new, we may find a way to capitalise on this, your being useless complaining on this thread about how his not as good and his gonna stay not as good, WAIT.. AND WATCH, So we can find out more about meta knight. You sir have judged too quickly.

 

[Zeriora]

Can anyone confirm if B-Air true combos after a U-Air or not?

Because that's pretty cool. I've seen the combo done, just not sure if it's true or not. The trajectory is right, MK just has to angle the hit of U-Air right so that the trajectory sets them into the B-Air's position from what I understand.

Again, pretty nifty, and I'm interested in it as a platform for future combos.

Yeah, it still works, tbh It works better because you can knock them horizontally and get the B-air spike and then you can punish with a few d-tilts. We need to find a new better option for punishes, Dash into Up B is reasonable, maybe you can get an Up air after it too.. maybe even the bread and butter depending on % and DI? Idk these are my thoughts.

 

[Glitchz]

deserved a nerf, glad sakurai still cares about his game

Dude, you clearly sound like you cant beat an MK. I'll bet that you still lose to MK even when his uair got nerfed lol.