Any Skill-Gate Characters?

[HydroJames]

What is a Skill- Gate Character?

A character who is accessible for amateurs, but is easily beaten by skilled players.

I don't think that the Soul Series has much those kinds of characters. Generally, most characters who are easy for beginner's to use are also deadly in skilled hands and rank high on tier lists.

Somehow, some characters who are more difficult to use don't have as many returns as some of more newbie friendly one. There are exceptions like Alpha Patroklos and Viola, who are the best characters in the game, but are the most difficult to use.

 

[Party Wolf]

zwei

 

[Paragon049]

There are exceptions like Alpha Patroklos and Viola, who are the best characters in the game, but are the most difficult to use.

Apat is not hard to use, even when not compared to actually difficult characters like Yoshi and Hilde. The level of proficiency required to be effective with him is much lower than it is for, say, Xiba or Tira. Apat has moves that are so good, oftentimes you barely even need to think during matches and can play purely on instinct, and still destroy the other player because of the risk/reward on his stuff. If you can do 2362A and 2363B from neutral, and can consistently link 2143B:B into JFT in combos, you are all set up to be a monster with this character. 1B:B and double JFT are nice, but 1B:B is -17 on JG and punishable on hit if you miss the just frame, and double JFT has a very small window in combos to be worth the extra ~20 damage except after certain things (Those being raw JFT since it's much easier to land the second one when it's done on its own, and 214B+G because the extra damage from getting the second one is pretty significant).

 

[Harry]

If the only way a player can consistently do JFT's is in combos, then they don't really scare me. What makes aPat so good in my opinion, and why his execution barrier is so high, is if you are capable of using Double JFT's to consistently punish your opponent. That requires being able to adjust to the different blockstun on unsafe moves. If you can though, you have an i12 mid-hit level punish that can do like 70 something damage with good range. That is severely limiting for the player who has to face that. Combine that with a consistent ability to just guard, and its just fucking stupid. That's part of what makes Woahzzz and Gold Shad so scary. They have shown over an over again they can punish your -12 and -13 moves with it. So many aPats look at JFT as combo filler instead of as a punish, and that's why they are lacking.

 

[taffertier]

zwei

Not really all that accessible. Besides being janky as hell he doesnt really play like anyone else if you want to use him effectively.

 

[Signia]

A character who is accessible for amateurs, but is easily beaten by skilled players.

I don't think that the Soul Series has much those kinds of characters.

SCIV Maxi kinda felt like one of those characters, at least when he was up against the top tiers. But he wasn't (and isn't in any game) really accessible to fully master. You can get by without knowing absolutely everything about your character, but there was a lot to memorize if you really wanted know what was going to happen in every situation, including natural stance transitions, 2-3 different transition loop orders, and the different stances each move auto-transitions to and how safe they are if you cancel with G.

Most high execution characters actually are very rewarding, but few people really get everything out of some difficult characters. It's like the Namco balance team is in theory world where everyone perfectly executes everything all the time. However, that kinda is how you balance a competitive game... you assume that if it exists, it will be mastered. There are a lot of abnormally difficult things in the game compared to the rest of the game's actions, though, so most players never really bridge that wide gap. That said, I expected there to be more players that can perfectly execute aPat and Cervantes's stuff, without ever screwing up. Yoshimitsu iMCF is another story, since you can't buffer it, so it requires 1-2 frame timings on potentially strong setups like 2K->iMCF, on top of being a one frame slide. Actually memorizing every timing of exiting hitstun or blockstun or attack recovery down to the frame is a bit much. But if it could be done, it definitely would be very rewarding, and it is super rewarding to master all the high-execution characters.

So I can definitely see why you'd think that high-execution characters aren't rewarded enough. Because most, if not all but a handful of players will never (and never did) get to the point where their execution will give them an advantage against top level Mitsus and Pyrrhas.

Is that bad? For most players, yes. For balance in competitive play, no. SCV is incredibly well-balanced which is pretty amazing for such an asymmetrical game.

 

[Aven Kujo-Gin]

I guess Astaroth is that kind of character, so good against noobs but so bad against hardcore players. Of course it doesn't mean you can't win in a Asta vs Apat match, but the probabilities are minimal.

 

[Withvees]

I'd say Xiba. Very accessible for amateurs. Combos are easy, almost no execution is needed. His biggest weakness is dealing with pressure and skilled players are aware of it. He has few options to deal with it. Obviously, in the hands of a great player, he is very deadly, but players definitely have to work harder to win with him.