But Nightmare, Sophitia and Groh really give me trouble with 2B
Yup, my experience exactly. Nightmare in particular has a way of interrupting 2B's flow and shutting her down; I've eaten a fair few well-timed soul waves in those matchups. Actually, all of his
repertoire is pretty good at fending off her aggro rushes and giving a decent chance at gettign ahead of her no matter which of several mix-ups she goes for. And meanwhile Groh just beats her to the punch to begin with and then chains into stupid easy combos for big damage. But that's just who Namco have decided he's gonna be now--it's not particularly 2B specific.
I honestly don't think 2B is cheap, per se, at least not at mid-level play and higher. Yeah, its a little cheesy that there are literally three different ways she can maneuver someone off the edge of the ring with a single single button and one 1/4th of the analog range, but most players can fend against that easily enough. It reminds me a bit of Kilik and Sophitia's
. variations; everybody has to go through learning how to defend against those reliably when they first encounter them early in their SC experience--it's just not something that is immediately intuitive. But eventually it becomes second nature. I think some of 2B's high low pressure, which she relies on heavily, is not substantially different from that--maybe a little faster. But honestly, much of what makes her easy for scrubs to spam at low level play makes her vulnerable at higher level play. Specifically, the ease with which her strings are initiated (and to a degree, chained) is accomplished in part by some portions of the string being non-cancelable and requiring a two or three stroke commitment. So when you come charging in with her, you are quickly forced to chose between diminishing branches of limited options (if you want to keep the pressure on anyway, especially), and then two options and then finally one path. The dash/back-dash is a kind of compromise that lets you back out of a dead-end avenue, specifically because you otherwise would get locked into an easily punishable set of a few patterns. Using that option is where a good 2B players differentiates themselves from the person just leaning on those gimme combos
/ abuse. Because if you overcommit too often, your opponent will find opportunities to punish you while you are locked into a quintillion frame animation. Playing mind games and faking out your opponent one time so they hopefully lean in the next is like a whole game unto itself, one which can reward players who really master it and get deep into the pattern mix-ups/cancel/mix-ups such that you always leave your opponent guessing (or, just lead them completely by the nose), but which can also be easily punished in high level play if you fail to secure that advantage. I think that's why I've been enjoying her so much; she reminds me of Amy in that respect--to execute them at peak form, you have to do some degree of baiting and making your enemy complicit in their own downfall. That's an angle on play which I've really missed and makes me even more eager to get Amy herself back.
None of which is to say that 2B's not top tier--she definitely is. But every day I face a few more players who are obviously clued in to her gimmicks. And if she's a bit of a masher's delight at lower level play, I can't really be bothered to be too concerned about that--same as with a third of this roster who can be similarly described. She does need some nerfing, I reckon, but I hope it comes in the form of just reducing her damage to make her have to work a little harder/longer with the same tools, though this seems to be an approach the devs have not used much so far in their balances--I hope they don't alter the reliability of connecting with her established strings as I feel that would be an over-correction in this instance.
...does any of that make sense to anyone? I find her a little difficult to describe in normal SC terms.