Is Midori's throw into B crossup TOO strong? Leaning toward… probably not?

[GRAG]

In his current state, non-dragon Midori is able to do a forward throw followed immediately by B for a perfect crossup that hits as the opponent stands up, or you can slightly delay it for a non-crossup version. In theory, the visual difference could even be imperceptible.

The question here is, assuming that the timing and spacing remain identical with non-placeholder animations… is this too strong a tool for him to have? It’s effectively a 50-50 mixup into potentially another knockdown. He is supposed to be a martial arts master who is big on throws and the like, so maybe this is fine?

Honestly, I have no horse in this race either way — there’s a case to be made that Midori may actually need this tool in some of his worse matchups (especially against Jaina), and it may simply wind up being organically resolved by his non-placeholder throw animation having different spacing or timing. I’m simply interested in the discussion that this may entail.

[CWheezy]

if it was a safejump i would say yes. I dont have the game but can you reversal out?

[GRAG]

Presumably. It hits meatier than an Australian cookout, so it’d have to be a character who has something that’s completely invincible on startup. I at least suspect Jaina’s C (Dragonheart) has that property…?

To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the specifics of the positioning and timing change enough with non-placeholder animations to render the whole matter moot, making it either an obvious meaty crossup or just incapable of crossing up in time.

[Caphriel]

I haven’t had much experience playing Midori against other people (Sotek stop being sick!), but my suspicion is that a) the animation isn’t final, and b) it’s probably fine? Geiger (DP), Jaina (DP, ground super?), and Grave (Sword? and ground super) all have startup-invulnerable options they can use, so trying to headbutt a KD one of them is just asking to get hit I think. I’m not sure what the interaction with Rook’s WMC would be, but there’s a chance that Midori gets thrown. If not, though, that’s probably also fine because most of the rest of that MU was pretty hard for Midori.

I’m pretty sure DeGrey can stand-up super counter it if he has meter, which means he can be safe from it most of the time, and I think that’s probably okay?

I’d be a little concerned about the Setsuki and Val matchups, but I don’t know how those MUs are right now. Neither of them has an invulnerable startup ground move, I think, and they both also have 5hp.

Obviously no information about Lum or Arg yet.

tl;dr: It might be a problem against rushdown characters, but currently most of the characters probably have some good option available at least sometimes. And also there’s the animation finalization to consider.

[Leontes]

Post Throw B was totally the first thing I tried; it seems okay because Midori can only do if off forward throw (I think?), and he MUST spam B on the first frame to get the crossup to happen at all, so you should be able to detect “delayed non - crossup headbutt” fairly easily.

What’s more scary to me is that he has an even more ambiguous version while in Dragon Form, because the timing on the headbutt is much more free.

Like sometimes when I do it, even I don’t know what side I will end up on.

If there’s anything Mad King has taught me about ambiguous mixups in Marvel, it’s that if the guy performing the mixup has no idea what’s going on, it’s probably a good mixup lol

[GRAG]

[quote=“Caphriel, post:4, topic:40”]
I’d be a little concerned about the Setsuki and Val matchups, but I don’t know how those MUs are right now.[/quote]

Midori’s C parry practically owns Valerie for free, so she has to change up her game plan significantly (and so does he, since dragon form is actually way less useful in that matchup than just parrying any physical attack). Midori is a man of fairly uneven matchups overall, at the moment, since he struggles against Jaina but utterly crushes Valerie, for instance. At least in theory.

[Sirlin]

A torpedo move crossing up is kind of the nature of the move. It naturally can be used for that. What would you even do to “fix” it other than make the hitbox really narrow so it’s hard to do?

I’ve done this many times as human Midori, but not every time. As the dragon, it’s much easier to do so I lean on that even more. It never really occurred to me it was somehow bad, it’s just kind of what it is. We should be especially lenient on allowing left/right mixups because we don’t even have high/low mixups.

Just as a factual note, yes it can be beaten with the things mentioned in this thread. DeGrey’s super beats the corssup attempt, so does Grave’s super, etc.

I’m not so sure Midori has an easy time vs Valerie. She can’t do her standard plan because she gets parried, but every time she baits a parry she gets 2 damage for sure and possibly 3 from a crossup. His dragon form also seems weaker against her than against anyone else. I don’t even know if it’s his advantage, much less him “crushing” her. He does have a hard time against Jaina though, I agree with that. But this whole paragraph is kind of off topic from the original post.

[GRAG]

Valid points! I admittedly also don’t have too terribly much experience playing against human opponents, so my thoughts on balance are almost certainly grain-of-saltworthy to begin with.

I was never really a Honda player or anything, so I could see how, unlike my initial impression, it’s entirely possible that the crossup setup was entirely deliberate as a way to add more knockdown pressure.

[Sirlin]

It’s not deliberate in the sense that that’s what the move is for. It isn’t for that. But as soon as you put such a move in, it kind of inherently can crossup. Crossups happen when the “center” of the character (as defined by wherever their “root node” happens to be at any given moment) goes past the opponent AND a hitbox is big enough to still hit the opponent.

So it’s kind of an emergent thing. Because I don’t know any way to really “fix” that, I took it as just another tool to use. This sort of thing is possible in Street Fighter also, and I’m not exactly sure why it’s not really common to do with Honda / Blanka. I have done it before with both of them though.

[GRAG]

Right, yeah, I’m sort of gradually getting that. It is kind of interesting, as you note, that the knockdown crossups aren’t considered a standard part of Honda/Blanka gameplay.

I guess I meant “deliberate” less in the “by design” sense and more in the “that’s not a bug! That’s a feature!” sense.

[Leontes]

Another tool that Valerie has is her air B. Haven’t fought a real Midori player just yet but it might not be so easy to parry the correct way. Like sure it always “works” but not perfectly like DeGrey super.

Also Valerie b+A cleanly beats both Dragon Cs.

Frustratingly when I read a Rook C, my unthrowable 2-hit armor piercing move doesn’t always work but that’s another discussion.

[GRAG]

Can confirm that at least in my recollection, Midori’s C parry at least defended against Valerie’s air B (and, in fact, when he’s in Purple Mode, he automatically grabs and throws her before the paint hitbox becomes active)

[CWheezy]

you could make him recover like 2 frames slower off his throw so it never crosses up. I thought it was a jump b not the headbutt

[GRAG]

I think a bigger question is whether it’s even something to “fix” or if it’s fine as-is. I’m coming around to it being fine, personally.

[Leontes]

I think as Sirlin said we should leave in as many left/right mixup opportunities as possible as long as they’re not somehow degenerate. This particular mixup seems pretty innocent, and I don’t think Midori is so safe on getting this blocked that it’s something you always go for? Will need to test if it’s majorly + or something.

[mysticjuicer]

Frustratingly when I read a Rook C, my unthrowable 2-hit armor piercing move doesn’t always work but that’s another discussion.

Working as intended. Nothing to see here. Move along.

[GRAG]

“That’s not a bug! That’s a feature!”

[Doombybbr]

just checked Midori’s throw, it goes further than it appears it should because the whiff animation is so different from the hit animation(and people will assumb the hit animation has something to do with he hitbox, in reality the whiff animation has the actual hitbox) you notice when using frame step(shift + 1 in practice mode) that he pulls the target from the hitbox into the throw animation and actually stutters while doing so.

Basically most problems with Midori’s throw are caused by its extremely deceptive animation, if the on hit and on whiff animations were cleaned up a little to be more representative of the actual hitbox there wouldn’t be a problem.

[SaSSolino]

I personally don’t love this kind of crossups, but I can live with it if I have to.

Also why does Valerie beat Dragon form Midori? What does she have outside of her ground Super?

[Sirlin]

Midori’s throw hasn’t lead to the crossup situation described in the original post for a long time, so this thread should be closed.