Quoted, "How broken is Voldo anyways?"

Sporko

Sporko

Big Gimpin
I was playing with a friend tonight that I've been trying to teach the game. After beating him 37-0, he asked me a question that has been, in one form another, asked of me from many people who play Soul Calibur. "How broken is Voldo?"

My only answer, generally speaking, is "Not as much as Hilde and Algol" but that is the best answer I can come up with.

Voldo is super-safe, has the best CF game in SC4, and half his moves tech crouch and the other half tech jump.

He's weak to step and, with the exception of a couple throws and the patented Voldozer, he can only ringout from one position at one distance. However, other than that, the dude is *TIGHT*. You might even say he's mother fuckin' tiz-zight.

In my *personal* opinion, Voldo is not broken but is as good as a character possibly can be *without* being broken. And, given the option, I'd tone him down some (I'd WAY tone down his soul gauge game and maybe add some recovery frames to his regular moves). However, whereas I think Hilde and *maybe* Algol are broken and deserving of the ban hammer ( keep your opinions away from that, this is not a thread on the merits of banning), Voldo is just....*really* good.

What are your thoughts?
 
That lanky bastard is a pain in the ass. Broken SG damage, that's for sure. He's safe, has great range, crazy hard-to-see mix-ups, stupid damage, a good autoGI, throws with a built-in sidestep, great punishers, and like you said, lots of TC and TJ.

Even with all that I don't think he's broken, but he could definitely use a nerf. One thing's for sure, if Hilde and Algol weren't in the game, people would be complaining A LOT more about Voldo.
 
I haven't seen any Ban Voldo threads, I think that's one indication of his 'not-brokeness'. On a side note, I can't imagine how he was in 1.02 though.
 
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microgamer said:
I haven't seen any Ban Voldo threads, I think that's one indication of his 'not-brokeness'. On a side note, I can't imagine how he was in 1.02 though.
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I often wonder this myself. (or was it 1.01 that patched his combo damage?)

When the game first came out, most players seemed to think Voldo was mid tier, maybe upper mid-tier at best. When they nerfed his combo damage, there was a lot of people saying "Why nerf a midtier like Voldo and then boost Kilik's damage?". That was before most people realized how crazy ridiculous Voldo is. If I'm not mistaken, his top combo now is 105 damage (though it requires a counter hit BS B+K to initiate). I can't imagine how good his combo damage was *pre* nerf.
 
While I hesitate to say that Voldo is actually broke, he's quite close. He is very safe, but the moves he has that are unsafe are almost extremely so. And as you mentioned, he is easily stepped... at least when he's not in Blind Stance. And yeah, he doesn't exactly need the insane Soul Crush factor.

I can, however, say that Voldo's torso is definitely broke.
 
This is kinda funny that this thread popped up today....cuz I just played a good amount with Manta today and did all kinds of complaining about how rediculous Voldo is in this game, how all that jumping around shit he does that somehow makes all my moves whiff in SC4 used to get him destroyed in SC2 and SC3.....basically I did a bunch of bitching at him about how Voldo was, the same way I bitch about Hilde everytime Ceirnian comes to play me etc. I think Voldo is definitely top tier in this game...not as good as Hilde and maybe Amy, but right after them. IMO it goes Hilde, Amy, and Voldo. Best in the game.
 
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I don't know enough about Amy to say for sure whether I think she goes before or after Voldo (though my gut tells me Voldo is better), but yeah, I do generally agree with ya.

Even though Voldo is now and will always *be* my main character, in SC2, SC4 and, if it comes out, SC 5 through 10, I do sort of wish he was toned down a bit. Right now I don't think he needs much to put him in line with the other characters. A nerfing of his SG damage and +some recovery frames to SOME (not all, like some Jaxel-ish people would recommend) of his moves and Voldo is A-OK. This would make me happy cause it'd bring him in line and also maybe (hopefully) make some of the Voldo bandwagon jumpers go to other characters. It's depressing when 15+% of your local tourney players play the same character, even moreso when it's *your* character who you'd play regardless of tier. I'd gladly settle for Voldo being mid-tier if it meant everybody would stop playing him, haha.
 
My biggest complaint about Voldo is that his most damaging moves/combos come from TC/TJ setups/mixups. It's like he can afford to constantly attack you with little to no fear of interrupt.

I mean, how much do I have to get hit with that BS B+K shit before I stop throwing out CS/SS altogether? XD
 
Or instead of wishing for a nerf on a character like Voldo you could insted say something like "other characters should be buffed". I don't think he warrants a nerf, but I certainly think other characters deserve a buff.
 
Sporko: That's why I give Manta props....cuz he stuck with the same character all this time, no matter how good or bad he was. In SC2 Voldo was good, but not one of those easy good characters like X. In SC3 Voldo was pretty average, his only real standout thing was the MC frame traps he used to have and even those weren't all that scary. Still, Manta used him against all the X, Cass, Sophie players all day in both games....well with a brief deviation to Miser in SC3 lol but still mainly Voldo. Now in SC4 Voldo is a beast and I feel like it's Manta's reward for sticking with him.

Ceirnian: I TOTALLY agree with your statement but as we've seen with Namco, they never do that. It seems that they take the easy road and just nerf the strong characters and leave the shitty characters the same. When everyone was complaining about X in SC3, many people suggested that they should just beef up the other characters to X's level and make the game more fun...but no...they came out with SC3 arcade edition and it seemed to just tone down every single character, even the ones that didn't need to be. With the first game changing patch that came for SC4, seemed to be the same case. Sadly I don't see this pattern changing anytime soon.
 
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Well, I don't *truly* feel he deserves a nerf either, however, it would be a lot easier to nerf two or three characters to bring them in line with everybody else than it would be to buff 15 characters to bring them up to the level of the top tier.
 
The fact that I put WAAAAAY MORE PRACTICE into Raphael then Voldo, yet I probably still win more with Voldo, REALLY SUGGESTS to me I need to just start mastering Voldo.

I don't even use his high damage combo's, like the BS B+K stuff. Playing a few good Voldo players also taught me that random BS jumping thrown into his mixups can REALLY add to his mindgames, like instead of BS 1A, try jumping then BS 1A...I mean, he's not easy to use with all his stances, but he's sure easy to win with.
 
Sporko said:
Well, I don't *truly* feel he deserves a nerf either, however, it would be a lot easier to nerf two or three characters to bring them in line with everybody else than it would be to buff 15 characters to bring them up to the level of the top tier.
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Exactly.
...And sometimes "less is more" is actually true.
 
My personal problem with Voldo is how unnatural his moves are. Most, if not all of the other characters move in such a way that you can logically predict how their attacks will flow. Not Voldo, he bends and attacks in ways no real human could ever hope to move. A Voldo player has a great mindgame at his disposal just because of his inhuman nature.

The only way to be able to combat a good Voldo user is knowing his moveset for yourself. I find that he's very hard to simply react to, like I can against any other character. It doesn't help that he is rarely played (at least from my experience, don't see many online and nobody in my circle plays as him), so it's hard to get practice against him.

I wouldn't say that he's broken, per se. His movement is just totally unpredictable.
 
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