Onimaru move set brainstorming

Here is the page for Onimaru move set brainstorming. I know @GRAG had a lot to say, and the moderators too.

As for me,
Far reaching normals like hakumen, so fairly midrange in terms of fs (we’ll leave full screen to Arg and BBB [rip team staff ;_:wink:
B: maybe a bad uppercut
C: chargeable, level 1 is nothing but a slow big chop (or horizontal slice), 2 is armor, 3 is unblockable. Maybe he can slowly slide forward like kirby’s hammer. Maybe this move is 2 damage to justify a special?

Air B: just throwing out an idea, but maybe a forward spin (like sonic but only once) with his sword and then he hits the ground. Maybe lots of block stun and pushes them back a bit, but lots of recovery frames
Air C
Super: an absurd OHKO? or at least stupid big damage? I think as a counter that’s complete BS because it can be done on reaction
Air super: clockwork army, maybe like sentinel

Also talk of his normal grabs do 1, but his yomi counters do 3 (or at least 2)

I’ll let Grag add his 2 cents, I can’t remember everything

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The idea that came up in chat was a OHKO super that only actually does 100% damage while the opponent is at 100% life (and otherwise does 1 damage). Maximize his “win the battle with a single strike” flavor. This might be a little silly (especially the idea to let him start the following round at 100% super gauge if he wins this way, to maximize I-know-you-know-I-want-to-do-this mindgames).

Other thoughts included making his throw do 1 damage but making his yomi counter do 3 (to play up the “master tactician predicts your tactics” flavor), and otherwise having all attacks do a minimum of 2 damage but have zero combo capabilities, because most characters can win a round in 2–3 combos against most opponents.

This morning my friend also suggested the idea of maybe giving him a Flash Duelesque clockwork soldier that comes from behind the opponent, though we didn’t really flesh out the details of how that might shake out.

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I also loved @Leontes’s idea of giving him kind of a Mist Finer thing that’s either really good anti-air, a really good forward attack, or just a bluff, but forcing him to commit to it up front (“It’s terrible anti-air so you should have known to just jump in because you’d have been totally safe”) to reinforce the predict-the-opponent flavor.

I’d have to see it in play, but a one hit ko sounds terrible to me. Like pure anti-fun.

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OHKO is one of the last mechanics that Fantasy Strike doesn’t have. An alternative I came up with was to have a sort of Execute move (for you WoW fans out there) where your super does 1 damage, but if the opponent is at 3 or lower, they take lethal.

Unblockable charged slash seems very Onimaru. My first inspiration there was actually Yamazaki since I haven’t played a lot of Guilty Gear, but Johnny’s Mist Finer seems like it’s really similar.

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Note the caveat that it would only be a one-hit KO when the opponent (and maybe also Onimaru?) is at full health, which would at least make it a much bolder thing to go for. Not that it would necessarily actually work, mind you.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If any move other than Deathstrike Dragon is a OHKO, I’ll be very disappointed. I also agree with @mysticjuicer that it just feels bad, even if it only works under very specific conditions.

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I honestly think it’d be worse if it was a one hit KO on full health, because that round would be super unfun. Lot of rage would happen. It wouldn’t be fun to pull off either.
I think the execute idea could work. That’d feel way less BS, and when you’re low on health, at least then you can start to prepare. You may already be playing defensively to stay alive anyways.

With Deathstrike, you at least have a timer. If it stays at 10 seconds and if Menelker becomes a 5 health character I think it’d actually be a really bad super, based on how difficult it can be to land as it is, but it’s very rewarding if and ONLY IF you can make it work right. Otherwise you may as well air super.

A time allows counterplay and a change in momentum, maybe (probably) a keep away game. If Oni did a OHKO in a single strike with no counterplay other than trying to bait it out at starts of rounds with full super, that would honestly be so infuriating to play against and gimmicky to play as.

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Ah, right… I need to actually fight Menelker so I can see his moveset for myself. Just haven’t had time to get to that fight yet, and probably won’t for a few weeks.

Yeah, ultimately I can’t disagree with the criticisms of what I freely admit is a completely bonkers idea. It’s fun to think about, though — there’s something to be said for the design philosophy of “go way too extreme, and then dial it back just enough”

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I think the idea of an OHKO super is an interesting one, but of course the risk exists that it might feel unfair. This is particularly important considering this game is being marketed towards people new to the FGC and if something feels too absurd, even if it can be countered well by good players, it could put them off the game.

I thought about it for a while, and I believe there are two conditions that are necessary for an OHKO move to feel fair:

  • It should require some setup from the player using the move to make it hit.
  • It should also require the victim to perform some action that is predicted by the user to make it hit (in particular, having an OHKO that hits if the user DOES NOT perform a certain action feels cheap).

One example I came up with was a character who places something on the ground, and his OHKO can only hit you if you get hit by the thing on the ground as he’s doing it. I eventually ended up fleshing this out into a full character design. I have no idea if this fits with the design of this character at all, it probably doesn’t, but I think it’s illustrative of how an OHKO character could work.

A button attacks: Low A is a low kick that is fast but has little range. Stand A is a big sword slash that has a lot of range but isn’t very fast. Back A is another sword slash that goes the other way, and is even slower but has some use as an anti air. Low A combos into Stand A, which is his best combo. Air A is similar to Stand A, which is great for air to air but not great for air to ground. All of them do 1 damage.

Grounded B slams the ground with the base of the sword and creates a little purple vortex on the ground. The move can hit, which knocks down and does 1 damage. It has a lot of recovery and is punishable on block. The vortex lingers for a while or until the user is hit, and if the opponent touches it, they get knocked back a bit, take 1 damage and suffer hitstun. It’s possible to hit them afterwards with stand A (low A usually won’t reach due to the knockback), but this needs to be done predicatively as the hitstun is short. Air B is the same idea but he falls downwards with it. This can be used as air to ground, but it still knocks down on hit and is punishable on block so it’s not a great option.

Ground C is a counter. It counters any attack from the front, dealing 1 damage, and costs 1 health to use, regardless of whether it is successful or not. If it counters a grounded attack, it knocks the opponent down and away. If it counters an air attack, it knocks the opponent upwards and you can combo super afterwards for 3 damage. It does not counter crossups and has recovery, so if you guess wrong you eat a full combo.

I actually have no ideas for Air C. We’ll just skip over that for now.

Air Super is similar to ground B, but it throws the purple vortex forward about 75% of the screen. It can hit, which does 1 damage and doesn’t place the vortex. It also doesn’t place the vortex if it gets blocked. Ideally, you want this not to hit so you can place the vortex behind the opponent.

Ground Super is very slow, charging sword slash that hits about half screen and does 2 damage if it connects. He can be hit out of it during the charge up portion and it is very punishable on block. The charge is very long, probably around 30 frames. The only ways to combo into this super are after a successful ground C after countering an air attack, or if the opponent touches the purple vortex ~25 frames after the charge starts.

Ground super is also the OHKO. After the opponent touches the purple vortex, they turn purple for the duration of the hitstun. If the super hits during this time, it has a special animation and it kills you, no matter how much health you have.

Obviously, this is super hard to set up. You have to input super about 25 frames before they touch the vortex, so if they just sit there, they can easily just block the super and punish. The main way to hit this would be to input super when the opponent is in the air in a situation where they’ll land on the Vortex, for example, if they forward jump into it, you can press super during the early part of the jump and they die (though do note that if they can hit you in the air, the super gets interrupted and they don’t die, so you either have to be far enough away or they must empty jump). There might also be situations where you could scare them into backdashing into it, but it wouldn’t be as reliable. So how do you spook them into jumping onto the vortex? Well, that’s the game.

OHKO is just a terrible idea, the no combo but 2 damage per hit on specials sounds better.

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I was thinking maybe Onimaru having the Turn Around Punch to end all Turn Around Punches.

For those not in the know, Balrog (the boxer from street fighter) has a move called Turn Around Punch, that is charged by holding the button down. He can play normally while charging it, but he obviously can’t use the button charging TAP because that’d mean he’d have to release them. In exchange, it’s a REALLY good move and gets even better the more you charge it; huge range, huge damage, invincibility, the works.

To simplify it in true FS fashion, just have Onimaru build a meter that depletes fully whenever he uses his ground C move. Each time the meter fills it goes up a level, up to level 3 or so, at which point it becomes an instant KO if it lands. This makes Onimaru apply more and more pressure as the match goes on, forcing the other player to rush down early (when his version of TAP isn’t deadly yet), or have to play really conservative when it’s charged to not get gibbed (such as not jump, ever).

For animation, I’m thinking something like Justice’s Michael Blade special, except Onimaru does a turn around before it, with increasingly more outrageous special effects.

That could be pretty hilarious. I’d enjoy that.

I’d want the meter to charge slow. Maybe 1 level per 10 seconds or even 15.

Am I the only one that belives that a 1 hit kill move is an incredibly bad design idea?

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No, it’s, like, an objectively bad design idea. Still fun for spitballing though.

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Because of the larger turn count and larger average damage of the game, and Onimaru compensating by not having combos anyway, I’d say if there’s a OHKO move on him it’d be fine.

I could see it being something that could conceivably work, but it would have to be tweaked within an inch of its life to walk the razor-thin line between “too good” and “useless.”

The one problem I see with a legitimate OHKO move is the large disparaty in health between characters. I don’t see it broken against Sets or Val. But onehitting a full-hp Rook seems brutal.

Stuff like this can be balanced of course. For example, Oni could otherwise have a bad MU against Rook. But that will reduce design space for future characters! If we ever want to make another high-HP character, his MU against Oni must work similiar than Rook’s, even if he might not be a grappler.

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Well, going with the TAP, if it has 4 levels of charge it could go:
0: 1 damage
1: 3 damage
2: 5 damage
3: INFINITY DAMAGE

The idea is that it balances out because low HP characters rush down better, so it’s harder to keep the charge, so you can one shot 1 level earlier, while high hp characters approach slower, but you also need more time to charge up.

Moving on to other moves: Anyone know how Anubis/Chaka in the old JJBA fighting game works? He has a parry move that blocks an attack, then knocks the opponent away, while Chaka says “I learned it!”. From that point on, any time you block that move, your opponent flashes for a moment and you can activate the parry again from block-stun, and it will land automatically. It’s a parry where you are rewarded with free parries!