A History of Killer Instinct

Season 3

Table of Contents

Patch notes for each patch in Season 3 are below. Notes marked with a indicate a buff (increase in character strength), notes marked with a indicate a nerf (decrease in character strength), and notes marked with a indicate that the character got better in some ways and worse in others. System changes, non-major bug fixes, or other miscellaneous changes are not marked. (Developer comments, where applicable, are placed in parentheses.)

Patch 3.0: The Season 3 Launch Patch - March 29, 2016 (discussion)

Why Rebalance?

  • We want to encourage player creativity in playstyles, setups, and combos.
  • Playing any character in KI should be a way to express yourself. The things you find aren’t just flashy, they are practical for in-match use.
  • We want to adjust the existing characters for balance against the Season 3 roster, while also giving players sticking with Season 1 or Season 2 characters new tools to explore.
  • We want to further tune the concept of Risk vs Reward within our Combo and Breaker systems, and on each individual character.
  • This is a significant balance shake up, so anything can happen!
  • Character changes are generally listed in a nerfs first, buffs last order where logical. If your favorite character lost some stuff, stay calm until the end, as you’ve probably gained some, too.
  • Remember- the rebalance is a sum of all parts. System changes, character changes, etc. Don’t think about a change you see and how it would act against a S2 character, as that will tell you the wrong story. Take it all in, try not to panic, you’ll be playing it very soon and we look forward to your feedback.

System

  • Some characters now have attacks that inflict a new “Stagger” reaction on the opponent. Opponents are vulnerable to throws during Stagger, just like after a Wall Splat, and cannot escape early in any way. You can still tech throws here so long as you are not locked out, just like a Wall Splat.
  • Some characters now have attacks that can cause a new “Flip Out” reaction against airborne opponents. Instead of putting them into a juggle state, they flip and land on their feet, allowing you a surprise mixup opportunity.
  • If you do not hit your opponent with anything breakable during your combo at any point, your Ender will not cash out and will be breakable.
  • Opener->Ender now remove lockouts, so that Opener->Ender is always breakable.
  • Ground Combo Breakers cause Flipout and are between -1 and +2 (Previously they caused soft knockdown and were between +30 and +60). This also makes it impossible in all cases to combo off of a Ground Combo Breaker.
  • Air Combo Breakers now cause Blowout. This makes it impossible in all cases to combo off of an Air Combo Breaker.
  • You can no longer cancel into Instinct from a Combo Breaker.
  • Hits that blow out a combo are now Breakable and Counter Breakable.
  • Sweeps are now breakable and counter breakable. Forced quick-rise will occur if your opponent uses a counter breaker, leaving them punishable as expected.
  • Corrected an issue preventing you from ever being Timing-Locked-Out while in the air.
  • Most juggle moves add much less KV than before, opening up new juggle paths to much of the cast.
  • The KV penalty has been removed from Ground Bounce for increased juggle opportunities.
  • Unified Shadow Counter startup time across the entire cast. They start up in 8 frames now, making everyone’s better except Aganos’, which got 1 frame worse.
  • Increased the window during which a Shadow Counter can catch an incoming attack by 7 frames, and also added 10 additional frames of recovery on whiff.
  • Grounded Heavy Normal attacks now ignore Armor.
  • Increased the cancel windows from Linkers into Auto Doubles across all characters to match Jago and S2 standard, so that if you are too early for a manual, you get an auto double instead of nothing.
  • Normalized the frame advantage and buffer check on all characters after auto doubles. Light Doubles leave you +2, Medium Doubles leave you +3, and Heavy Doubles leave you +5. A 5 frame buffer window is on all characters, rather than just some, so that your next move is easier to time.
  • Normalized pre-jump frames to 4 across the cast.
  • The manual Hitstop penalty has been reduced from +4 frames to +3.
  • It is now possible to break a combo during Hitstop, instead of being forced to wait until the Hitstop has ended. In addition, Instinct Cancels must now allow 2 frames of Hitstop before occurring. These two changes together prevent Instinct-Cancel Unbreakables.
  • LK+MP is now available as an alternate input for Shadow Counter activation, Counter Breaker activation, and Medium Combo Breakers.
  • LK+HP is now available as an alternate input for Instinct Activation and Heavy Combo Breakers.
  • Throw breaking no longer causes 3 fully vulnerable frames on your opponent, and instead causes 3 projectile invulnerable frames.
  • Ender Damage tuning pass performed. You can expect better consistency in the relative damage output from different ender types. Generally, damage from worst to best goes
  • Meter Ender < Splat Ender < Launcher Ender < Exchange or Hardknockdown Ender < Damage Ender
  • Unlisted Character Changes – Many, many bugs have been fixed that are unlisted, but these do not effect game balance. They only get rid of odd, unwanted behavior. If a bug fix effected balance, for the most part, it is on this list.

Jago

  • Fixed a bug that allowed you to perform Shadow Tigers Fury the frame before landing after a blocked or hit Tigers Fury.
  • Reduced Laser Sword Ender damage by ~10%
  • Reduced Endokuken Ender damage by ~15%
  • Double Roundhouse (F+HK) starts up 1 frame slower so that you can’t use this heavy move as a medium manual.
  • Healing amount per hit during Instinct reduced by 25%.
  • Adjusted the crouching HK attack box so it better matches his foot. This makes it slightly easier to juggle with as well.
  • Throw canceled into a Shadow Move starts with less KV for increased juggle opportunities.
  • Normal attacks push the opponent back less in a juggle for increased juggle opportunities.
  • Medium and Heavy Laser Sword juggles launch higher and closer for increased juggle opportunities.
  • Light Laser Sword and Jumping LP now cause Flip Out.
  • Shadow Endokuken is larger and has a larger hitbox.
  • New ability: Endokuken Charge! Can now hold the button to delay an Endokuken’s release.
    • Jago can dash cancel in either direction while charging up.
    • When fully charged, you release a Big Endokuken.
    • Big Endokukens can destroy some smaller projectiles, and also deals increased hitstun, blockstun, and damage.
    • You can charge up in Instinct, and you will release two Big Endokukens at full charge.

Sabrewulf

  • Feral Cancel has a 30 frame longer cooldown, and a new indicator when it is ready for use again.
  • Leaping Slash startup slowed down. This move now hits on frame 20 instead of frame 14.
  • Fixed a bug preventing Feral Cancel from carrying over breaker windows for a few frames from the previous move correctly.
  • Running Uppercut has 12 additional frames of recovery, but is still -2 on block and allows Wulf to break out early for all of the same juggles with the same timing. Attack box size reduced.
  • Eclipse damage reduced by ~15%
  • Shadow Eclipse Damage Reduced by ~35% (because you can juggle after it)
  • All Ender damage reduced by ~15%
  • Sabrewulf no longer gets any damage bonus during instinct. He still deals chip damage with normals, however.
  • The frame on which Wulf can cancel his dash into a special has moved from frame 14 to frame 16.
  • Eclipse and Shadow Eclipse no longer auto correct to turn around and face the opponent after a forward dash.
  • Crouching HP starts up 1 frame slower so that you cannot use this Heavy attack as a Medium manual.
  • Sabrewulf’s Medium Leaping Slash Linker now hits two times. The Heavy Leaping Slash and Heavy Hamstring Linkers now hit three times.
  • Eclipse and Shadow Eclipse inflict less blockstun, making them a bit easier to punish.
  • The LP, MP, HP target combo now works against airborne opponents.
  • Standing HK causes Stagger.
  • The final hit of Ragged Edge and Shadow Ragged Edge now causes a ground bounce against airborne opponents for increased juggle opportunities.
  • Crouching LK causes Flip Out.
  • MK and HK versions of Run move faster.
  • Hamstring’s slide travels farther.
  • New command move: Diving Slash! During Jump Up or Jump Forward, F+MK.
    • Cannot be done from a jump back.
    • Has very few active frames, but tends to leave Sabrewulf roughly even with his opponent.
    • Has the landing recovery of a normal jump attack, making it useful for repositioning.

Glacius

  • Fixed a bug that allowed Shadow Cold Shoulder Linker to be canceled after the 4th hit, but before the 5th
  • Cold Shoulder LT, MED and HVY are now -3, -5, and -8 on block. (Was -2, -3, and -5)
  • Jumping MK deals 3 frames less blockstun. Jumping HK deals 7 frames less blockstun.
  • Reduced Shatter Ender damage by ~20%
  • Reduced Hail Ender, Shoulder Ender, and Puddle Punch Ender damage by ~10%
  • Reduced Shadow Puddle Punch damage by ~10%
  • Reduced Shadow Shatter damage by ~20%
  • The “tell” on Shatter (beam of light) appears 4 frames earlier.
  • Shatter has 10 additional frames of recovery time, making it more in line with the command throw that it is.
  • Shatter and Shadow Shatter are now actual projectiles, so they will whiff projectile invulnerable characters and cannot be countered by Hisako.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented Shadow Hail from being used after ranged Shatter Linkers or ranged Auto Doubles.
  • Shatter is active for 2 frames longer, making it easier to tripguard with. Its total active time is now 4 frames.
  • Glacius can now dash! It is not good, but hey, you asked for it!
  • Liquidize can now cross under opponents in the corner.
  • Hail damage and meter gain reduced by ~50%.
  • Hail can survive off-camera for longer, which prevents hail left off screen from being destroyed, and opens up new setups and approaches when leaving hail behind Glacius.
  • New ability: Multi-Hail! Tap or Hold a different punch button while summoning hail to summon another hail.
    • This adds another 25 frames to the move, making it quite risky if you aren’t careful.
    • You can hold and release your multi-hail in any order.
    • Greatly enhances zoning and setup potential.
  • New ability: Instinct Power Up! New abilities available during Instinct!
    • During instinct, when wearing Ice Armor, Glacius’ Shadow Counter window lasts until the end of the animation. This old bug is making a return as a feature!
    • The defensive buff you always wanted!
    • During instinct, Liquidize moves much farther and faster.
    • During instinct, press HP+HK to perform the Homing Puddle Punch.
    • During instinct, press F+HP+HK to perform the Cross Up Puddle Punch.

Thunder

  • Ender functions and damage retuned to be in line with the rest of the game.
    • Ankle Slicer Ender no longer causes a hard knockdown and deals much less damage, but still gives a full size battery bonus.
    • Triplax Ender deals less damage, but more than Ankle Slicer, and still causes a Wall Splat.
    • Sammamish Ender deals less damage, but more than Ankle Slicer and Triplax, and now causes a Hard Knock Down if you don’t juggle after.
    • Call of Earth Ender no longer causes a hard knockdown and deals a bit less damage, but is still the damage ender.
  • Shadow Call of Earth damage decreased by ~15% (Deals 20% damage instead of 23%)
  • Jumping HP damage reduced by ~15%
  • Thunder is no longer allowed to cancel the landing recovery of a whiffed Sammamish into another special or shadow move.
  • Shadow Sammamish damage reduced by ~20%
  • Light Sammamish no longer allows Sammamish Followups
  • Light Sammamish now has full body invulnerability on startup instead of just upper body.
  • Call of Sky has 10 frame shorter recovery, adds “Murder of Crows” buff to Thunder 1 frame earlier, and can destroy incoming projectiles from frames 14 to 20.
  • Thunder can now cancel a hit or blocked Skyfall into Murder of Crows enhanced dash.
  • Fixed a bug preventing the duration of the Call of Sky buff from refreshing if you used Call of Sky again while the buff was still on.
  • Juggle properties of some moves adjusted for increased juggle opportunities.
  • Standing Light Kick causes Flip Out, and the hitbox has been improved to assist with juggling.
  • New Sammamish followups: Dropkick and Surprise Knee! After Sammamish:
    • HK – Skyfall – The same two foot stomp you know and love, but it now causes a ground bounce for a juggle opportunity.
    • MK – Dropkick – Causes a Hard Knockdown.
    • LK – Surprise Knee – Causes Flipout.
    • These can carry your trajectory in interesting ways. Experiment!
    • Dropkick and Surprise Knee have 15 frame landing recovery. They are punishable on block so use them wisely.

Sadira

  • Jumping HK damage reduced by ~15%
  • Can no longer use Webs during Enders, and performing an Ender will destroy any webs currently in play.
  • Shadow Recluse damage reduced ~20% (because you can juggle after it)
  • Instinct Web damage reduced by ~85%
  • Widow’s Bite projectile damage reduced by ~25%
  • The kick part of Heavy Widow’s Bite is now breakable.
  • Enders have been retuned in function and damage to add more variety to Sadira, but overall damage has been reduced.
    • New ender – QCB+P(Any) – Web Cling Ender (Damage Type, most damage)
    • QCF+HP – Demon Loop Ender (Launcher Type, least damage)
    • QCB+HK – Recluse Ender (Exchange / Hard Knockdown Type, middle damage – You can no longer juggle off this ender)
  • Corrected an issue preventing Sadira from building meter for herself or her opponent when using the F+HK Command Normal.
  • Reduced pushback of juggle normals to increase juggle potential.
  • Can now jump cancel Special Moves during Instinct on block. Previously this was only allowed on hit.
  • New Command Move: Salticidae – In Air, D+HK
    • On hit or block, this head stomp bounces Sadira into a double jump that she can control the left/right momentum of.
    • You can attack again after bouncing.
    • You can bounce as many times as your opponent will let you.
    • If you miss, you suffer long landing recovery.

Orchid

  • You can no longer call Instinct Cats during Enders.
  • You can now only cancel Shadow Uppercat into Air Throw if your opponent is in an air reaction state, preventing you from skipping the landing recovery of a whiffed or blocked Shadow Uppercat by whiffing an Air Throw attempt.
  • Ender damage adjustments.
    • Ich Ni San Ender damage greatly reduced (by ~35%), now does less than her Splat ender.
    • Knee Buster Ender damage reduced by ~5%
    • Shadow Uppercat Ender damage reduced by ~10% (because you can juggle after it)
  • Flick Flack Ender now causes a hard knockdown if you don’t juggle off of it.
  • Shadow Knee Slide is now -2 on block (was -6).
  • Air throw deals less KV for enhanced juggle opportunities.
  • When hitting an airborne opponent, Crouching HP re-launches and can be jump cancelled for increased juggle opportunities.
  • New air target combos for increased juggle opportunities.
    • LK > J.HP
    • MP > J.HK
  • The final hit of Flick Flack and Shadow Flick Flack will now ground bounce an airborne opponent for increased juggle opportunities.
  • The final hit of Medium Ichi Ni San 3rd with now ground bounce an airborne opponent for increased juggle opportunities.
  • Some normal attack hitboxes improved to help when juggling opponents.
  • Standing Far HK knocks opponents vertically instead of away in a juggle.
  • Air Throw starts up 2 frames earlier and is active 2 frames longer. Attack box size increased making it easier to do in combos and more powerful in neutral.
  • Fully charged Shadow Ichi Ni San is now unblockable. Damage reduced ~20%
  • New Ability: Buster Slide! Orchid can now cancel the active frames of Knee Slide into a Knee Buster if the move has not hit yet.
  • New Ability: Ichi Nise! Orchid can now Dash Cancel forward while charging up Heavy Ichi Ni San 3rd.

Spinal

  • Fixed a bug that allowed Spinal to cancel his Crouching MK one frame before it actually hit the opponent if they were already in hitstun from something else. This fix removes the Skeleport Linker Cross Up Reset from the game.
  • Reduced Boneshaker Ender damage by ~10%
  • Jumping HP damage reduced by ~15%
  • Skull-less Searing Skull now causes a knockdown.
  • Knockdown duration after Front and Back throws reduced by 16 frames, making vortex setups less straightforward.
  • Lv4 Searing Skull Ender doesn’t launch as high, preventing any juggle from it.
  • Skull projectiles in flight are removed from play if Spinal takes a hit.
  • Skull projectiles deal less chip damage on block.
  • Curses reworked! Curses no longer steal Shadow/Instinct meter. Instead, they prevent the opponent from gaining Shadow/Instinct meter.
    • Hitting Spinal removes only the oldest curse, so you need to hit him multiple times to removed stacked curses.
    • Curses last 30 seconds instead of 5 to 8 seconds.
  • Shadow Searing Skull doesn’t knockdown, so you can use it mid combo and manual afterward. This allows you to capitalize more on the Instinct Curse’s new function.
  • Jumping MK (Divekick) inflicts 3 additional frames of blockstun, making it safe if you can get it to hit just before Spinal touches the ground.
  • New Instinct Mode: Agent of Chaos! Spinal’s Instinct mode has been reworked so that starving Spinal of his resources is a more viable strategy against him. However, this Instinct mode grants Spinal new ways to go absolutely wild.
    • Activation grants 3 skulls.
    • Skulls do not automatically regenerate at all, ever.
    • If you build skulls by any means other than Power Devour, you gain double skulls during instinct.
    • Skulls fired during instinct don’t disappear on block or walls or floor and bounce left/right or up/down. They are destroyed if
      • They actually hit the opponent
      • They bounce off the opponent 3 times
      • Spinal gets hit
    • Firing a 5th Skull destroys the oldest one.
    • Spinal can Power Devour his own Skulls to re-absorb them into his supply.

Fulgore

  • Fixed a bug that allowed you to perform Shadow Cyber Uppercut the frame before landing after a blocked or hit Cyber Uppercut.
  • Added 2 frames of additional Hitstop and blockstop to F+HP command normal to make it a bit easier to Shadow Counter and Break.
  • Standing HK special cancel window reduced.
  • Attack box on Blade Charge and Shadow Blade Charge reaches lower, making harder for opponents to low-profile this move.
  • Standing HK now causes a Wall Splat.
  • Air Shadow Laser now causes a Hard Knockdown so that it is never punishable on hit.
  • Levels 1, 2, and 3 of the Eye Beam ender launch higher.
  • Overhead causes a ground bounce against airborne opponents.
  • New Target Combo! Crouching HK -> Crouching HP. Launches opponents for a juggle.
  • Move reconfigured: Eye-Beam Lens Fixed! Eye Beams have been overhauled:
    • Light Eye Beam still launches a single beam at the floor, but has 1 additional frame of recovery and pushes opponents back less.
    • Medium Eye Beam now launches two beams at the floor. It is +2 on block and +5 on hit. It has less pushback compared to the old Med Beam, but more than the Light version.
    • Both Lt and Med versions have increased juggle potential.
    • Heavy Eye Beam now launches a full screen horizontal beam on frame 24, and recovers in 51 total frames (used to be 13 and 26).
    • Heavy Eye Beam causes Stagger on hit. It is -7 on block. It deals increased damage and chip damage.

TJ Combo

  • The Linker version of Tremor has been removed. You can still use the Special version in juggles normally, but after an Opener or Auto Double, it will now trigger the Ender version just like any other Ender-Only special does in golden path combos.
  • Re-tuned Ender damage to be more in line with the rest of the cast.
    • Flying Knee Ender (Exchange) damage increased by ~10% and does the most damage of the non-Barrage Enders.
    • Vortex Ender (Launcher) damage reduced by ~10% and does the 2nd most damage of the non-Barrage Enders.
    • Powerline Ender (Splat) damage reduced by ~15% and does the 3rd most damage of the non-Barrage Enders.
    • Tremor Ender (Meter) damage reduced by ~20% and does the least amount of damage of the non-Barrage Enders.
  • TJ’s Tumble is now only upper body invulnerable, but still fully projectile invulnerable. He is vulnerable to lows and mids all the way through the roll. It is still also throw vulnerable.
  • Hitbox size reduced on Medium and Heavy Tremors.
  • The first few frames of TJ Tremor will no longer crush low attacks.
  • Shoot Toss starts up 4 frames slower.
  • You can no longer cancel Shadow Powerline into Spin Behind on block, but it still works on hit.
  • Shoot Toss KV reduced by 50% for increased Juggle and Combo opportunities.
  • Medium and Heavy Vortex hit 2 and 3 times respectively. All Vortex and Cyclone moves deal less KV for increased juggle opportunities. The amount of hits also helps the opponent know which strength to use for breaking Vortex and Cyclone. Medium and Heavy versions scoot forward a bit more than before on startup.
  • Fixed a bug causing opponents juggled by crouching normals to fall more heavily than if juggled by standing normals.
  • Shadow Vortex is now fully invulnerable until it becomes active.
  • Frame advantage on normals improved where possible to make him less negative if he doesn’t cancel, while still allowing a Shoot Toss to grab the opponent if they don’t jump.
  • Standing LK and Jumping LK cause Flipout.
  • New Air Target Combo: Jumping LP into LK, which causes Flipout.
  • Standing HP and Close Standing HP cause Stagger and leaves you plus enough to manual a Light or close Medium.
  • New Target Combos: TJ Combinations!
    • These work on Whiff to help with footsies, juggles, and mixups.
    • Far Standing MP > HP, causes Stagger
    • Far Standing MP > MK
    • Close Standing MP > HP, causes Stagger
    • Close Standing MP > MK
    • Crouching MP > HP, causes Stagger
    • Crouching MP > MK

Maya

  • Jumping HP and HK damage reduced by ~15%
  • Mantis is no longer available from a back jump. Neutral and forward jumps only.
  • Dagger Toss Light and Medium recovery is 6 frames longer.
  • Raised hitboxes of daggers slightly to make it easier for more characters to low profile to avoid them.
  • Dagger toss no longer deals chip damage on block.
  • Dagger Toss followups from Leap Kick are only available on hit or whiff. You cannot do these on block anymore.
  • Leap Kick Ender does not launch as high, forcing you to juggle a normal before you juggle with a Dagger Toss.
  • Maya’s Shadow Counter now uses Shadow Linker Leap Kick instead of Shadow Tumble Kick.
  • The 2nd hit from Daggers (Dagger Spirit) cannot cause a combo to blowout.
  • All Linker damage increased to normal damage-and-scaling levels so that Maya gains Ender levels normally.
  • The 2 hits of opener Tumble Kick advance the damage scaling by 1 hit instead of 2, helping Maya build Ender levels normally.
  • Tumble Kick Ender damage increased ~20%
  • Widened cancel window on 2nd hit of Crouching MP target combo and Crouching HP to make these feel better.
  • Tumble Kick and Shadow Tumble Kick cause a Ground Bounce on the final hit against airborne opponents for increased juggle opportunities.
  • Normal and Dagger juggle properties have been adjusted to extend juggle opportunities.
  • Normal and Axe Kick Recapture hitbox sizes improved to enhance juggle opportunities.
  • Adjusted launch velocity on Shadow Leap Kick to make the Dagger Toss followup work as intended.
  • Mantis can cash out combos if a breakable window occurred. It deals more damage than before in a combo.
  • Double Dagger Strike launches opponents for a juggle.
  • Dagger/Pip Damage Ender is removed from the game and reworked into
  • New ender: Dagger Assault Activation Ender! – QCF+HP
    • This Ender does extremely low damage and leaves the opponent standing.
    • After the attack portion of the ender, the daggers leave Maya’s hands and hover above the opponent’s head, attacking them automatically every few seconds.
    • The number of times they attack is based on the number of pips you had when you activated. (0 pips = 1 attack, 4 pips = 5 attacks)
    • These attacks can be blocked and don’t build up new pips.
    • When Dagger Assault ends, the daggers violently separate.
    • If Maya gets hit, Dagger Assault ends right away.
    • Dagger Assault does not carry over between rounds.

Kan-Ra

  • Jumping HP damage reduced by ~15%
  • Spike Ender (Launcher) damage reduced by ~5%
  • Swarm Ender (Special) damage reduced by ~10%
  • Shadow Clutch damage reduced by ~25%
  • It is no longer possible to attack on the way down after using Air Swarm.
  • Shadow Swarm now starts with a breath attack, just like the startup of normal Swarm. The projectile only spawns if you miss the breath part of the attack. Getting the projectile out takes much more time.
  • Swarm and Shadow Swarm projectile damage reduced by ~55%
  • Swarm hitbox size reduced by ~35%.
  • Swarms hit 5 times instead of 6, slightly reducing the amount of time you have to setup/juggle.
  • Swarm Breath blockstun re-tuned.
    • Light Version is -3 on block (was +7)
    • Medium Version is -2 on block (was +3)
    • Heavy Version is -1 on block (was -3)
  • Back+MP is now +1 on block instead of +6.
  • Added more blockstop to Close Swarm Startup and Back+MP to make using a Shadow Counter against them a bit easier.
  • The startup of Clutch has a more noticeable anticipation pose.
  • Sacrifice deals 200% more actual damage to Kan-Ra (15 damage, up from 5). Potential damage inflicted is unchanged.
  • It is no longer possible to Instinct Cancel the recovery of Sacrifice.
  • Far crouching HP launches airborne opponents up higher.
  • Lv4 Spike Ender launches higher.
  • DF+LK and DF+MK Scorpion Strike attacks now properly count as projectiles, making them unbreakable.
  • Crouching LP and Jumping LP cause Flipout.
  • Juggle versions of Clutch (that used to cause 1 juggle hit but were pretty useless) now cause Flipout and recover much faster.
  • Standing HK and Back+HP cause stagger and are extremely plus on hit, allowing for new opening, setup, and combo opportunities.
  • Tornado projectile always launches opponents toward Kan-Ra, and now does a little damage. It launches higher for a juggle opportunity.
  • New Ability: Monsoon! Hold the button when using Whirl over a Sand Trap to keep spinning and release a larger, more damaging Tornado projectile, which is unblockable at maximum charge.
  • Move re-tuned: Shadow Spike! Shadow Spike now releases a single, multi hit spike under your opponent instead of a series of Spikes. It then leaves an enhanced Shadow Sand Trap that attacks automatically with Scorpion Strikes every few seconds if an enemy is nearby. This automatic functionality stops if Kan-Ra gets hit, creates another puddle, or uses Sacrifice.

Riptor

  • Jumping HK damage reduced by ~15%
  • Jumping HP damage reduced by ~40%
  • Shoulder Charge Ender (Splat) damage reduced by ~10%
  • Tail Flip Ender (Hard Knockdown) damage reduced by ~5%
  • Corrected a bug causing a few of her Enders to build her small amounts of meter.
  • Tail Flip and Air Tail Flip, both Light and Medium versions, slowed by 4 frames. Heavy versions slowed by 6 frames. Trajectories slightly adjusted for the new timings.
  • Tail Flip damage no longer changes based on strength used, and all damage has been reduced to match the damage of the Light version.
  • Tail Flip recovery has a taller Vulnerable box to make punishing it more intuitive.
  • Added KV to Clever Girl to compensate for the fact that Ground Bounce KV penalty has been removed from the game.
  • Close HP now counts as a projectile hitbox as expected.
  • Predator LP now tags as an Opener so that combos after the Wall Splat function as expected.
  • The ground version of Shadow Tail Flip will now get all five of its hits more reliably.
  • Can no longer cancel out of Clever Girl on frame 15 into Specials or Normals. Can now cancel out of Clever Girl early at frame 12 into Normals or Runs.
  • Reduced KV on Run Back HK and improved its launch trajectory to expand juggle opportunities.
  • Adjusted Run Back HK in Instinct to match the frame data of the normal version.
  • Run Back HP Flame Wall deals ~80% more damage.
  • The running portion of Shadow Shoulder Charge now has 1 hit of armor.
  • Jumping HK doesn’t bounce people away from you anymore, keeping them close enough for a followup attack.
  • Crouching HK on juggle doesn’t push opponent away as far.
  • Crouching HK is -5 on block instead of -15.
  • Fixed a bug preventing you from using Primal Linkers after manual normals.
  • Primal Linkers deal ~40% more damage to encourage using them in all levels of play.
  • Predator Mode dashes are now projectile invulnerable on her top half as intended. It should be much easier to Predator dash under projectiles now.
  • Run HK causes stagger instead of a knockdown.
  • Predator Dash HP (Flame Arc) causes stagger.
  • Standing LK causes Flipout, and has a slightly taller hitbox to assist with juggling.
  • New Move: Flame Mortar! – Press and hold 3P to launch Flame Balls in a high arc at the opponent’s location, up to 3 in a series.

Omen

  • Fixed a bug that prevented Omen from doing Auto Doubles, Linkers, or Manuals after the rapid press portion of Furious Flurry Med or Hvy hit the opponent.
  • Jumping Medium Attacks deal 3 frames less blockstun. Jumping Heavy Attacks deal 7 frames less blockstun.
  • Omen’s Rashakukens push him slightly farther back from the opponent near the corner.
  • Omen’s Rashakukens build slightly less meter on hit or block for Omen, and slightly more for his opponent.
  • All enders still gain meter, but the non-meter enders gain 25% less than before.
  • Shadow Furious Flurry Linker is now +1 on hit (was previously +11), and the manual timing is 5 frames later.
  • Opener Slide has less frame advantage on Hit and has had its manual timing windows re-tuned.
  • All Ender damage reduced by ~15%
  • Air Backdash slowed down by ~15%
  • Throw damage reduced by ~40%
  • Fixed a bug preventing Slide linkers from changing sides with larger characters in the corner.
  • The following moves have been given Attack Box improvements
    • Crouching Heavy Punch
    • Crouching Medium Punch
    • Jumping Heavy Kick
    • Standing Heavy Kick
    • Standing Medium Kick
    • Standing Light Kick
    • Standing Close Light Kick
    • Standing Heavy Punch
  • Rashakuken’s random fireballs deal 4 additional frames of hitstun. Blockstun is unchanged.
  • Jumping HK damage increased by ~65%
  • Shadow Rashakuken and Shadow Orda Shield are no longer destroyed if Omen takes a hit.
  • Doubled the duration of Shadow Meter Lockout.
  • Enders can now build meter even if a Shadow Rashakuken or Shadow Orda Shield is active.
  • Jumping LP, Standing LK, and Standing Close LK all cause Flipout.
  • Demonic Despair is now invulnerable from startup until the grab.
  • Omen can cancel air dashes into attacks much earlier.
  • New ability: Turbulence! Omen can cancel air dashes into the opposite air dash direction by pressing Back or Forward a single time.

Aganos

  • Normal attacks give more meter to the opponent on hit and block.
  • During Instinct, a new Peacemaker respawns in 90 frames, up from 30 frames.
  • Peacemaker attack damage reduced by ~20%
  • Shadow Natural Disaster Linker damage reduced by ~30%
  • Shadow Pulverize Linker damage increased by ~20%
  • Damage on Natural Disaster and Pulverize Enders increased ~25%
  • Adjusted launch velocity on the held part of Shadow Natural Disaster and fixed an issue where the Counter Hit version didn’t match to make juggle timing more consistent.
  • Shadow Ruin startup now has 7 frames of strike invulnerability.
  • Close Standing MP has a slightly wider cancel window for feel.
  • Standing Far HP causes Stagger and is -5 on block (used to be -10).
  • Hitstop on LK, MP, and HP Auto Doubles have been reduced slightly to match the reaction speeds needed to break the matching-strength Doubles better.
  • It is no longer possible to shove Aganos’ body across the stage between rounds.
  • Chunk Up recovers 6 frames faster.
  • Wall Summon moves get the wall out 6 frames faster and recover 5 frames faster.
  • Aganos can rip a Peacemaker out of the wall behind him in 34 frames now (down from 53).
  • While holding a Peacemaker, the following non-peacemaker normals are now possible as command normals
    • B+LP – Anti Air Flick, destroys your peacemaker
    • F+HP – Both close and far variants of Standing HP, lets you keep your peacemaker.
    • DF+HP – Crouching HP, lets you keep your peacemaker.
  • Aganos will keep his Peacemaker while being hit, but it will still crumble if he is knocked down, put into a juggle state, or blown out.
  • Thrown Peacemaker causes Stagger on hit.
  • New ability: Recycling! If Aganos tries to Chunk Up while holding a Peacemaker, he will shove the Peacemaker into his chest instead of pulling a fresh chunk from the floor, giving him a drastically shorter Chunk Up animation (Only 39 frames, compared to 69 frames on the original version).
  • New ability: More Recycling! Placing a wall with a Peacemaker in your hand turns the Peacemaker into a wall, instead of consuming a chunk.

Hisako

  • Added travel distance to Influence Linkers against Aganos only to ensure they never fail to hit him.
  • Possession used to act as an unblockable, ground only hit that triggered a grab animation, but it now functions properly as a grab and can be avoided with grab-invulnerable moves as expected.
  • Adjusted the size of the Vulnerable Boxes during fidgets to match the size of the Vulnerable Boxes during idle.
  • Low Vengeance Counter is no longer able to catch Mid attacks.
  • Added recovery to the landing of Air ORZ making it a bit worse on whiff. If you hit too high it’s possible to be punishable, but it is also possible to still be +3 or so.
  • Slowed startup of Med and Hvy Air ORZ (by 4 and 8 frames) and altered the way they move in the air a bit to compensate.
  • Improved the hitbox of Hvy Air ORZ so it hits higher up and crosses up easier, making it worth the extra startup.
  • Wrath meter no longer recharges while jumping.
  • Wrath regeneration speed is increased by 50%.
  • Close HP, Far HK, and Close HK all cause Stagger on counterhit and deal much more hitstun.
  • Standing LP and Jumping LP cause Flipout.
  • You can now jump cancel the 3rd Heavy ORZ if you hit an airborne opponent, and using 2nd Heavy ORZ to juggle into the 3rd hit is easier.
  • Descent is no longer effected by Kan-Ra’s Curse.
  • Descent crushes highs 1 frame sooner and gets underground 10 frames sooner.
  • Hisako used to be able to cancel out of Descent on frame 48 into attacks only. Now she can cancel into movement as well, and on frame 42 instead.
  • New Shadow Move: Air Shadow On Ryo Zan! Hisako can perform a Shadow version of Air ORZ! This version hits rapidly and always recaptures air opponents, and staggers grounded opponents.
  • New Ability: Descent Cancel! Hisako can now cancel into Descent in any situation she could Wrath cancel for a Vengeance counter. This costs half Wrath just like the Vengeance cancel does.

Cinder

  • Fixed a bug that caused Cinder to teleport a great distance when canceling a Fired Up Inferno into a Shadow Fission.
  • 3rd Degree Chain Combos now count as 1 move toward the breakability rules no matter which move hits first or which moves whiff, so the “Domi Unbreakable” now becomes breakable on the 3rd loop of this as expected.
  • The 2nd and 3rd Trailblazer followups (Afterburner) now always match the strength of the first Trailblazer in the sequence for breaker purposes.
  • Raised KV on Pyrobombs to 14 (from 12)
  • Added 3 frames of recovery to Fireflash. Fired Up Fireflash is now -6 if you block the pillar, and every character in the game can Shadow Counter the pillar for a full punish, or punish with any attack faster than 6 frames.
  • The 3rd hit of Light Third Degree combo is +1 on block instead of +2. Canceling into Shadow Fission here is no longer a true blockstring.
  • Fireflash Ender (Damage) no longer causes a hard knockdown.
  • Pyrobomb Ender (Meter) damage reduced by ~10%
  • Trailblazer Ender (Splat) damage increased by ~5%
  • Air Heavy Trailblazer becomes active 2 frames earlier, and cannot land to create the ground crash until 3 frames later. This avoids a situation where the crash could hit without the Trailblazer, leading to an unbreakable hit.
  • Ground Medium Trailblazer inflicts 2 additional frames of blockstun.
  • Lowered KV added by Cinder’s throw to 20 (from 50)
  • Cinder can now throw Air Pyrobombs even after doing Air Trailblazer, leading to new juggles and setups.
  • Move re-imagined: Angled Inferno! Different Inferno strengths now attack at different angles. Light is up-forward, Medium is horizontal, and Heavy is down-forward.
    • You can hold the button to keep any version burning for a while longer.
    • Their frame data was re-tuned for their new function.
    • The Heavy version hits low!
  • New ability: Throw Cancel Burnout! While Fired Up, you can cancel your throw into a Level 1 Burnout with QCB+P or QCB+K. This spends your Fired Up state.

Aria

  • Fixed a bug that could cause her projectiles to inherit the properties of her attacks, such as knockdowns or cash outs.
  • Slowed the attack speed of Explosive Arc Linkers so that the different strengths are more readable.
  • Widened the breakable window on Explosive Arc Linkers by 5 frames.
  • When Drones are called as an assist and get hit, they now take 2.5x damage, up from 2x.
  • Shotgun Knees are now more negative on block.
    • Light Version is -3 (was -1)
    • Medium Version is -5 (was -4)
    • Heavy Version is -10 (was -8)
  • Shadow Dissonance launches and causes a hard knockdown. It is possible to juggle after this move now.
  • Crescendo causes stagger (grounded Med and Hvy versions still launch).
  • Standing LK and Jumping LP cause Flipout.
  • Heavy Kick and Bombs deal less KV for increased juggle opportunities.
  • Heavy Kick Bombs don’t push opponents as far away on hit for increased juggle opportunities.
  • Juggle values on normal attacks adjusted for increased juggle opportunities.
  • Improvements to the attack boxes on Standing HK, Close Standing HK, and Crouching HK.
  • New Target Strings: Operatic Destruction!
    • Standing LK into Standing HK (does not combo)
    • Standing MP into Standing HK (does not combo)
    • Standing HP into Standing HK
    • Standing Close MP into Standing HK
    • Standing Close HP into Standing HK
  • New ability: Charge Up Bombs! Can now hold far standing HK to charge up the attack and release additional grenades.
    • You can dash cancel in either direction while charging up.
    • If you perform a target string into Standing HK, you can still charge up and dash cancel as desired, opening up new frame traps and offensive techniques.

Shadow Jago

  • Fixed a bug causing Shadow Shendokuken to hit one extra time when used in a ground combo.
  • Added additional recovery time to end of Slide Enders, preventing some unintended juggles and other bugs.
  • The earliest moment Shago can cancel out of his Dashes into moves has been moved back 5 frames.
  • Shendokuken projectiles deal 20% less damage on hit.
  • Shadow Slide is no longer throw invulnerable
  • Fixed a really bad bug that allowed Shago to exit his backdash early on frame 20 (of 40) into a block. You should be able to develop Option Selects to punish this backdash now.
  • Surge Divekick has 6 frames of additional landing recovery, and is now -3 on block instead of +6 to +8.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed Shago to Instinct Cancel the landing of his Shadow Dark Fury Uppercut.
  • Shadow Divekick is now throw invulnerable on startup.
  • Shadow Divekick changed to a single hit that always recaptures, followed by four grounded hits.

Patch 3.1: The Mira Patch - April 27, 2016 (discussion)

System Changes

  • Mira, a new playable character, has been added to the roster.
  • A shadow move that would be breakable as a linker, but hits 2 or less times, no longer counts as a ‘breakable move’ in your combo. This removes these “half-whiff-shadow-linker unbreakables” from the game. (This means that, in order to cash out damage from these combos, you will have to add at least one more breakable window to the combo somewhere, or ensure the Shadow Linker hits 3 or more times. It is still possible to use these "half whiff" shadow linkers in combos, and they are still great options for messing up your opponent's timing or sneaking in some damage.)
  • When your opponent techs your throw attempt or your throw is teched, it no longer counts as a reaction for cases where being hit (going into a reaction) destroys your projectiles or ends your active modes or curses. (This effects things like Spinal’s Curses and Skulls, Maya’s Dagger Assault, Kan-Ra’s Shadow Sandtrap, Cinder’s Pyrobombs, etc. Anything that would have ended when the character was hit. Now these characters can attempt throws as part of their offense without risking the loss of their projectiles, modes, or curses.)
  • Added a 5 frame buffer window to the Counter Breaker input, so that you have a 5 frame window to input a 1st frame Counter Break attempt. This removes the need to manually time a 1st frame Counter Breaker vs someone inputting a 1st frame Breaker attempt. (In general, you will still have to input your counter break before your opponent inputs his break attempt to succeed. But for manuals in particular, it was unreasonably difficult to input your counter break before an opponent who is also trying to break immediately. You may have noticed this in cases such as Tusk's skewer or Rash's LP juggles after a launcher. With this buffer in place, you will have a much easier time beating your opponent to the break and counter breaking successfully.)
  • Fixed a bug that forced you to go through 1 frame of jump landing at the end of a Flipout, preventing reversals. (This lead to actual, inescapable flipout setups, and this change removes them.)
  • Fixed a bug where you could perform a second wall splat move without blowing out a combo following a move causing ground bounce or recapture.
  • Adjusted Flipout so that all characters fall with the same timing/gravity, instead of falling with their own personal jump gravity values. (We wanted players to be able to develop flipout setups that are not quite as character specific, though you’ll still have to deal with varying heights/widths on your opponents, as well as screen positioning factors.)

Jago

  • Fixed an issue that could cause some Lv1 Enders to whiff or be blocked when performed on the last possible frame of the cancel window on a light manual.

Sabrewulf

  • nil

Glacius

  • Fixed a bug causing Glacius’ Command Normals to not get the +3 manual hitstop penalty.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed opponents to get hit by Shatter during their pre-jump frames.

Thunder

  • Nil

Sadira

  • Decreased the knockback on Sadira’s Blade Demon (Launcher) Enders by 33% to increase followup combo options. (We recognize that players enjoyed the range Sadira was left at for juggles off of the old Recluse ender, so this new spacing allows f+HK and tiger-knee Med Widows Bite followups to be much more practical.)
  • Fixed a bug causing Sadira’s Normals to not get the +3 manual hitstop penalty. This bug was also causing higher than intended KV output for Sadira, so this fix has resulted in some longer juggle ability.
  • Fix for the 2nd hit of Heavy Widows Bite not being breakable in some situations as intended.

Orchid

  • nil.

Spinal

  • Changed the duration it took for the hitbox to reappear on an Instinct Skull that had just bounced off of the wall from 25 frames to 20 frames.
  • Fixed a bug causing an Instinct Skull that hit the opponent and the wall on the same frame to consider its interaction with the wall as a priority.
  • Shadow Searing Skull is now +14 on hit (down from +26). (All Heavy manuals are still easily possible here.)
  • Shadow Searing Skull damage reduced by 58% (These two changes were made because Shadow Searing Skull is being using as an unbreakable linker with a massive manual window after now. These changes make it a low damage unbreakable Shadow Linker with a fair manual window after, making its primary purpose to apply an Instinct Curse.)

Fulgore

  • Fixed a bug causing the 2nd hit of his Medium Eye Beam to be breakable when used as an opener.

TJ Combo

  • Increased the special cancel window on TJ Combo's Standing Light Punch, fixing a bug that could make it difficult to special cancel from this move.
  • Fixed a bug causing all hitboxes to be missing for a few frames when landing from a Linker Flying Knee.

Maya

  • Raised minimum height from which you can perform Mantis on the way up.
  • Mantis damage reduced by ~25% (Mantis combos were back in a big way in 3.0. Mantis being the only meterless juggle cash out in the game, in addition to Maya’s new juggle abilities, allowed her to deal a lot more damage than intended on few-break-chance combos a lot more easily than we’d like outside of instinct. As such, we are toning Mantis down, but being a meterless juggle cashout is still very strong and the damage is still respectable. We anticipate that this technique will still be used often by Maya players.)
  • Crouching Light Kick is now -3 on block (was -5). (We have no idea why this was ever -5 on block. Now it is less unsafe.)
  • Fixed a bug causing her Counter Breaker to teleport to the opponent’s location.

Kan Ra

  • Made adjustments to the Sand Scorpion attacks.
    • Removed the first hit damage bonus of x2, as this was causing his Clutch command throws to sometimes deal double damage while a Shadow Sand Trap was active.
    • Increased damage on ground Scorpion Strike from 14 to 18 points (~22%)
    • Increased damage on anti-air Scorpion Strike from 5 to 18 points (~360%)
  • Fixed a bug that caused the spit startup part of the Swarm projectile to damage other players if it came in contact with projectiles they own.
  • Fixed a bug causing his Light and Heavy Swarm attacks (up close) to have eachothers on block frame data. Light is now -3, and Heavy is now -1 as intended.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause the Scorpion Tail strike in his Ultra to blowout.

Riptor

  • Added 1 frame of hitstop per hit (up from 0) to the hits of Flame Arc to ensure it follows ALL breaker system rules properly. Timing on followups has changed slightly as a result, but frame advantage is unchanged.
  • Corrected an issue causing Riptor to get stuck in her Lv2, Lv3, and Lv4 Talon Rake enders longer than intended, making them punishable on hit. She is no longer punishable on hit, and is left about +1 on her opponent.

Omen

  • Made Demonic Despair’s hits count as “Launcher” hits. This fixed an issue where Arbiter’s Plasma Grenade could go off during this move, putting Arbiter back on the ground and leaving Omen punishable.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed Omen to cause his linkers to teleport to the opponent’s location if they were already in hitstun from something else.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed Omen to use crouching MK while his legs were burned out without fanning the flames.

Aganos

  • Fixed a bug causing Aganos’ Normals to not get the +3 manual hitstop penalty.
  • Hitbox Adjustments to Standing Far HP.
  • Added slightly more attack range to better match the animation.
  • Added an additional vulnerable box behind Aganos so that opponents could properly punish this attack from behind.
  • Fixed a bug preventing Heavy Natural Disaster from bouncing off another Aganos in the mirror match on block.
  • Fixed an issue where Light, Heavy, and Shadow Payload Assault moves could fail to count as openers and lead to unbreakable combos.
  • Increased the size of the attack box on Back+LP to cover over his head slightly better. (This change was made to help with some of new aerial offence available in the game.)

Hisako

  • Possible fix for Light and Medium Influence Linkers sometimes not passing through opponents properly after Standing Medium Punch manuals.
  • Fixed a bug that could get Super Flash stuck ON when she was hit out of specific frames of her Shadow Counter.
  • Fixed an issue preventing Shadow Air On Ryo Zan from becoming breakable/counterbreakable when it should.

Cinder

  • Fixed a bug causing the Shadow Linker version of Trailblazer to not be projectile invulnerable as intended. (All other characters who have a projectile invincible shadow move in neutral also had that invincibility on the linker version. This fix will help Cinder better avoid opponent projectiles, such as Arbiter or Orchid’s grenades, during his own combos.)

Aria

  • Fixed a bug causing Aria to get the fully charged version of HK no matter how long she held the button. (This created a situation where lots of fully charged bombs could be used to add unbreakable damage to any of Aria's juggles. Standing HK will now have to be held to get the extra bombs, as intended.)
  • Added additional pushback to standing HK to remove a big-character blockstring infinite.
  • Fixed a bug where Activating Instinct caused any attached Cinder Pyrobombs to be destroyed

Shadow Jago

  • If you cross behind your opponent with your dash and press P, you will now trigger the vertical version of Dark Fury instead of the angled version. (This change was made to reduce frustration in fighting against this tactic. It decreases its effective range, but if an opponent is not blocking crossup, they will still get hit by Dark Fury in much the same way as before, and all the same juggles will be possible, so we still expect this technique to be very strong. The main goals here are to allow an opponent to better punish Shadow Jago for a successful block or dodge, and to adjust the risk/reward on this technique.)
  • Made Shadow Dark Drift a low to match the properties of the special move version.

Kim Wu

  • Added some vacuum to Kim’s Shadow Counter so that it is less likely to whiff its first hit, and much less likely to whiff any hits after the 1st if the 1st hit connects. (Her Shadow Counter was whiffing in a lot more situations than expected so hopefully these improvements help.)
  • Possible fix for Dragon Counter sending back unintended Dragon Cannons
  • Fixed a bug that made Shadow Dragon Kick do ender damage on the 2nd hit even outside of a combo.
  • Fixed a bug that made Shadow Firecracker teleport to opponent after long range openers.

Tusk

  • The following normal and command attacks now count as Openers, so that followup manuals, specials, and shadows are breakable.
    • Backstab
    • Standing Far MP
    • Standing Far HP
    • Crouching MP
    • Crouching HP
    • (We made this change because we felt the unbreakable damage output after these moves into Shadow Skull Splitter was a bit high, but we didn’t want to take raw damage away from these moves. This gives players the opportunity to break without removing the heavy damage.)
  • Reduced the damage of Normal attacks after a successful deflect by 20%. (Though the raw damage matched the normal version of these attacks, the Deflect Success versions leave a LOT of potential damage behind because they are technically hit #2 of the combo. In the next update, another adjustment will ensure that deflect moves deal ONLY raw damage, leaving no potential damage behind. Until then, we’ve lowered the damage slightly to alleviate this concern a bit.)
  • Fixed a bug causing the Deflect Success version of Standing HP to have 3 less frames of advantage compared to the normal version. (You should now be able to get the same combo confirms off of standing heavy punch weather or not it deflected something.)
  • Adjusted vulnerable boxes on wakeup to make sure Riptor’s Flame Carpet would hit.
  • Can no longer use Skewer against opponents with no health remaining. This also prevents him from using it against TJ during his Last Breath.
  • Fixed a bug with his Immortal Spirit Overhead and Immortal Spirit Enders that caused them to fan the flames during Punch Burnout despite being kick button moves.

Arbiter

  • Fixed a bug that allowed Arbiter to cancel his Shadow Linkers to Linkers.
  • Fixed a bug causing Arbiter’s Normals to not get the +3 manual hitstop penalty.
  • Fixed a bug causing his standing block to be throwable.
  • Fixed a bug causing jumping HP to be tagged as a special instead of a normal, raising its priority and allowing Spinal to Power Devour it.
  • Fixed a bug causing his crouching HP to cause a Hard Knockdown.
  • Fixed an issue where Plasma Grenades could fail to count as openers and lead to unbreakable combos.
  • Fixed a bug that gave Arbiter additional air actions during Instinct mode.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause a game freeze if Arbiter was hit out of his Lv1 Prophet’s Bane ender.

Rash

  • Fixed a bug where Rash's standing medium kick could cross under cornered opponents.
  • Adjusted vulnerable boxes on wakeup to make sure Riptor’s Flame Carpet would hit.
  • Reduced the blockstun from Wrecking Ball by 6 frames. (This change was made so that more characters have anti-air punishment options after blocking this move, especially taller characters. Characters should have additional options now for challenging followups to Wrecking Ball on block.)
  • Moved the frame on which you can cancel Run into attacks from frame 8 to frame 9.
  • Moved the frame on which you can cancel Run with a Jump from frame 4 to frame 9. This prevents using Pre-Jump frames to cancel out into normals earlier than intended.
  • Fixed a bug causing Rash to start on a later frame of his Run when canceled into from Big Bad Boot, leaving him more advantaged than intended. (With these 3 changes, he now has the same frame advantage on a run cancel as he does if he didn’t run cancel the Big Bad Boot attack. Because of the fast paced nature of the game and the speed of Rash’s overall pressure, we still expect run cancel boot to be quite useful in Rash’s offense.)

Patch 3.1.5: The Gargos Patch - May 27, 2016 (discussion)

System Changes

  • Gargos, a new playable character, has been added to the roster.
  • Fixed a bug causing the attacker in a throw tech situation (the one who initiated the throw) to not be pushed back by the throw tech, resulting in closer-than-expected positioning, especially noticeable in the corner.

Jago

  • nil

Sabrewulf

  • nil

Glacius

  • Lowered damage of Ranged Auto Doubles by ~10% (This change was to make them more in line with Gargos’ ranged auto doubles, which also deal less damage than his close auto doubles. Because of the way Combo Breakers work in S3, it makes more sense to us to give Glacius players a choice between maintaining range for less damage, or transitioning his combo into a close ranged one for full damage, rather than just doing the same thing all the time. Glacius’ keep away abilities and damage are pretty outstanding in Season 3, so this small damage adjustment shouldn’t hurt him too much.)

Thunder

  • Light Sammamish no longer causes a hard knockdown. (This change was to put the invincible reversal version of Sammamish in line with other invincible reversals. We feel that he should not be getting great mixups after landing this.)

Sadira

  • nil

Orchid

  • Her Air Throw is now breakable in combos as if it were a normal hit. You break it using LP+LK, but Orchid can also counter break you for trying, so be careful! (This lead to a lot of unbreakable damage for the last 2 years of play. Now that we’ve developed tech to allow air grabs and anti-air grabs that don’t end combos to be breakable within the combo system for Gargos, we’ve added this tech to Orchid to bring her more in line. Orchid players still have her new air target combos that continue juggles to mix in with her air throw combos to keep opponents guessing and lock them out.)

Spinal

  • nil

Fulgore

  • nil

TJ Combo

  • Advantage Ender now occurs much quicker to make followup mixups much more surprising as they flow with the speed of TJ’s Combos. (While the setups after Advantage Ender can be pretty good, both players do have quite a lot of time to think about them due to the speed of the old version of this animation. The new version is much snappier and keeps TJ flowing like he should. We think TJ players will like this change and we expect to see the Advantage Ender a bit more often as a result.)

Maya

  • nil

Kan Ra

  • nil

Riptor

  • nil

Omen

  • nil

Aganos

  • Fixed an issue that caused damage to Aganos’ walls if he performed a Ground Bounce or Recapture on his opponent.
  • Fixed a bug causing an inconsistency in the recovery time of Ruin after hitting an armored character.

Hisako

  • nil

Cinder

  • nil

Aria

  • Fixed a bug causing her Level 1 Explosive Arc ender to whiff Mira at very close range.

Shadow Jago

  • Various changes to Jumping Heavy Punch
    • Fixed a bug causing Jumping HP to hit only 2 times instead of the intended 3 (he flips 3 times).
    • Reduced the attackbox size on Jumping HP so they reach above him less and cover less space overall.
    • Increase the vulnerable box size during Jumping HP to make this move easier to anti air.
    • Reduced the blockstun inflicted by Jumping HP by 12 frames, leaving Shadow Jago roughly even with his opponent on landing when this move is blocked. (These changes should go a long way into making use of this move less thoughtless, and encourage Shago players to use jumping attacks with less coverage if they want to maintain frame advantage when landing. This is still a powerful jumping attack, however.)

Kim Wu

  • (Kim has a few buffs below. We notice that when most players ask for buffs, their suggestions are to simply remove a character’s weaknesses. This solution doesn’t work. Instead, we’ve chosen to tweak a few things that should enhance Kim’s strengths. Read on.)
  • When returning enemy projectiles with Firecracker, different strengths will now send Dragon Cannons at different angles.
    • Light Firecracker returns a horizontal Dragon Cannon, just like before.
    • Medium Firecracker returns a 30 degree up angled Dragon Cannon.
    • Heavy Firecracker returns a 60 degree up angled Dragon Cannon.
    • Shadow Firecracker returns 3 Dragon Cannons, one at each angle.
    • (The team felt it was a bit too easy to simply jump over the Dragon Cannons being returned by Kim, so we added angle options to make it far less predictable.)
  • Increased walk speed by 15% (Kim is a ground based, footsie heavy character, but we felt she should use just a little better walk speed to really find success with this gameplan.)
  • Her forward dash now finishes in 17 frames (down from 22 frames) (This should also help with the overall ground positioning and mobility needed to be a very successful footsie style character.)
  • When the Dragon Counter (Parry) is successful and the resulting explosion hits the opponent;
    • It now causes a hard knockdown vs airborne opponents
    • It deals 20 damage to the opponent
    • It builds some shadow meter for both Kim Wu and her opponent
    • (We wanted to increase the reward for a success parry slightly, and feel these changes should help. Anti-air parry, in particular, should now be a fairly powerful option.)
  • Removed the restriction preventing Dragon Stocks from refilling during Instinct if Kim was in a reaction or knocked down. (This was a holdover from a previous instinct ability we tried on Kim during development. Since that is not in the game, it doesn’t make sense to prevent Dragon generation while being hit anymore, and we aren’t sure why we left it there in the first place. This should give Kim players a much more predictable number of Dragons during Instinct.)
  • Fixed a bug causing her vulnerable boxes to change size when using rapid fire Standing Light Punch

Tusk

  • Tusk’s Deflects now reset the combo state so that the followup hit can deal the same damage as the non-Deflect version of the move, but not add any potential damage to the opponent. (We noted this change was coming in the 3.1 patch notes, but here it is! Deflect versions of Tusk’s moves no longer leave any potential damage behind on the opponent. While Tusk’s raw damage is untouched, and this change technically makes his Deflected moves hit harder than they did in 3.1, the combo after will not start at an increased ender level.)

Arbiter

  • Moved the first active frame of Crouching Gun Butt back one frame (used to hit on 12, now it hits on 13). Added 2 additional frames of active time onto the end of Crouching Gun Butt, making it active for 1 frame longer over all. (This change helps with the change below to prevent this Heavy Command normal from being used as a Medium manual, while also making it a slightly better anti air when used early.)
  • Moved the Manual Cancel window on Medium Linker Truth Seeker (qcf+P) from frame 29 to 31 to prevent Crouching Gun Butt (Heavy) from being used as a Medium Manual.
  • Moved the Manual Cancel window on Medium Mercy’s Demise (qcb+P) from frame 30 to frame 28 to ensure that Crouching Medium Punch was able to connect as a manual here.

Rash

  • Fixed an issue preventing players from canceling Battlemaniacs Beat Em Up combos into Ultra.

Mira

  • Fixed a bug causing her Lv4 Reaping Ender to fan a Kick Burnout.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause some auto doubles to whiff after long distance QCB+HP recaptures.
  • Fixed a bug causing the post-superflash portions of her Shadow Moves to autocorrect unexpectedly.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed her to land a Heavy manual off of a Medium Reaping Linker.
  • Fixed a bug preventing Mira from canceling openers into Doubles, Linkers, Enders, or Ultras if her opponent was hit by her projectiles during the move.
  • Fixed a bug causing her crouching LK to be -5 on block instead of -3 like the chained crouching LKs are.

Patch 3.2: The General RAAM Patch - June 13, 2016 (discussion)

System Changes

  • General RAAM, a new playable character, has been added to the roster.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause a fresh reset combo ending in a wall splat to blow out as if that wall splat was the 2nd one in the same combo.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause a character to rocket across the screen when performing an air counter breaker.
  • We now enforce a minimum of 24 frames of hitstun when your opponent attempts to counterbreaker you, in addition to the 30 frame maximum we were already enforcing to ensure that counterbreaker attempts are punishable. (This means that you wont see grounded opponents popping out of hitstun early when you counterbreak from certain moves, making them feel much more consistent. )

Thunder

  • Fixed a bug preventing the LK and MK followups from being used after a Shadow Ender Sammamish.

Spinal

  • Fixed a bug preventing Spectral Manuals from causing Blowouts.
  • Fixed a bug causing Spectral Manuals to always fan the flames of a burnout as a punch attack, instead of counting as the same move type as the auto double that came before it.

TJ Combo

  • Fixed a bug causing excessive pushback on a blocked Close Standing HP in the corner.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause TJ to get a Tremor Ender instead of a Vortex Ender when canceling from a kick manual.

Maya

  • Dagger Toss damage reduced by 33%
  • Maya can no longer use air dagger toss after Shadow Leap Kick. [These two changes were made to reduce the very high once chance break damage Maya was getting in Season 3. We also feel that invulnerability is enough of a reward for the Shadow Leap Kick and that it doesn’t need to lead into a combo. Maya’s close to mid-range control of her opponent is still very strong, so this change weakens the damage of her defense without removing the potency of it, while also making reducing the 1 chance break damage.]

Kan Ra

  • Kan-Ra is no longer throwable during the active frames of Light Clutch. [This fixes an issue where it appeared that your Clutch was teched because you were thrown on the same frame that the Clutch hit the opponent.]
  • The grab box on the first active frame of Clutch has been increased in size to cover the area closer to Kan-Ra. [This should help the move to not whiff as often against very skinny characters up close]

Hisako

  • Fixed a bug where Hisako's low catch counter worked against air attacks that did not hit overhead.

Kim Wu

  • Fixed a bug that could allow Gargos’ minions to attack her during a specific part of her Ultra, knocking her out of it.

Tusk

  • Fixed a bug causing the 1st hit of the Heavy Punch auto double to whiff some crouching characters.

Arbiter

  • Downforward+HK is now +12 on hit (was +15) and +6 on block (was +11) (This move was too good, as it could manual into itself. Now it still gives extremely high frame advantage, but not quite as absurd as before.)

Mira

  • Increase the cost of Mist Form from 20 health to 40 health. (Mist form is incredibly powerful on both offense and defense, and in practice, the team feels this warrants a higher blood cost. We’ll be keeping an eye on how this effects Mira play.)
  • When added after a wall splat, Embrace now heals for half the amount it would when landed from neutral (50 instead of 100). (This option is still powerful, and will still heal you more at Lv1 and Lv2 than a bite ender would if you have corner positioning, but the tactic is a bit weaker overall.)
  • Mira can now perform Air Dash with (Upforward, Forward) inputs. (This will make air dashing feel more familiar to players experienced in other Air Dashy games.)

Gargos

  • Fixed a bug preventing Shadow Devils Divide from scaling in combos.
  • Fixed a few issues giving Gargos the incorrect number of jump actions after a blocked Reckoning.
  • Fixed a bug causing Gargos to keep going forward instead of falling when Air Light Crusher caused a counterhit.
  • Reduced the length of the cancel window on Standing HP by 3 frames to fix a bug causing the Oblivion Ender to drop when late cancelled after this move.
  • Fixed an issue that let Gargos use Stoneskin Explode to break out of some strike-style grabs earlier than expected.
  • Fixed an issue causing the Portal Punch hitboxes to stay active for longer than expected.
  • Fixed a bug where Gargos’ minions could interrupt enders and his ultra.
  • Fixed a bug where Gargos' Madness Commannd Throw would cause the opponent's mesh to mirror.
  • Fixed a bug allowing players to quick rise from Sadistic Drop Ender and Shadow Sadistic Drop.
  • Fixed a bug causing the hit counter to not go up during Devils Divide enders.

No Changes

  • Jago
  • Sabrewulf
  • Glacius
  • Sadira
  • Orchid
  • Fulgore
  • Riptor
  • Omen
  • Aganos
  • Cinder
  • Aria
  • Shadow Jago
  • Rash

Patch 3.3: The Eyedol Patch - July 21, 2016 (discussion)

System Changes

  • Eyedol, a new playable character, has been added to the roster.
  • Counter breakers now enforce a minimum of 24 frames of hitstun, regardless of the move that preceded it. This should fix situations where defensive players pop out of hit stun inconsistently and their combo breaker attempt, instead of being caught by the counter breaker, is instead treated like a neutral action and punishes the offensive player. [This change was missing from the official patch notes, but was confirmed to be in this patch. - Infil]

Jago

  • Endokukens build 25% less Shadow Meter on hit and block for Jago. (The team feels that, given the strength of Instinct with two meters, Jago is sitting on full meter a little too easily. Even after this change, Jago remains the meter king of the game.)

Sabrewulf

  • Crouching MP is now +5 on hit (was +3)
  • Crouching HK is now +1 on hit (was -2) (This allows both of these moves to combo into Run Leap Slash Overhead on hit.)
  • Fixed a bug that would leave Wulf cornered after performing a back throw against Gargos while cornered.

Sadira

  • Fixed a bug that caused Salticidae to bounce off of thin air if the opponent had just blocked a Widow’s Bite.

Orchid

  • Fixed a bug that allowed Orchid to bail out of certain parts of her enders into Shadow Flick Flak.

Spinal

  • Fixed a bug that allowed Spinal to absorb his own skulls outside of Instinct.

Fulgore

  • Light Eye Laser is now -2 on block (was 0)
  • Medium Eye Laser is now 0 on block (was +2)
  • Heavy Eye Laser is now -10 on block (was -7) (This change ever so slightly weakens his pressure by forcing him to use Medium Laser to stay even on block, and makes using Heavy Laser without a pip cancel in zoning slightly weaker as well. Fulgore is still both an offensive and defensive powerhouse.)
  • Fixed a bug that could cause Fulgore’s Devastation Beam to detach from him he was moved out of place without being hit during the move.

Maya

  • Fixed an issue preventing Maya from being able to perform a linker immediately following a Shadow Counter.
  • Made an adjustment to the successful Mantis animation so that it doesn’t look quite as strange when hitting an armored character.

Kan Ra

  • When Kan-Ra is hit while he has a Shadow Sand Trap, it will turn into a regular Sand Trap now instead of being destroyed. (The team was a bit worried this would prove too powerful, but we are going to try it for now and see how it shakes out.)

Riptor

  • Fixed a bug causing Running HP to be counter breakable on whiff.
  • Fixed a bug causing some hits of the Tail Flip ender to not be breakable during opener ender situations.

Omen

  • Rashakukens deal 1 less frame of blockstun. (This makes them ever so slightly less reliable in pressure strings that are spaced too closely or get a fast moving set of orbs. Omen controls the pace of the match really well so this won’t hurt him much, but will allow a tiny bit more wiggle room for opponents.)
  • Demonic Slide attackbox reduced to only be in front of him. The Shadow Version’s hitbox is unchanged. (As much as we like the Omen flipout into slide mixup, we feel it’s a bit too strong for the character. This change will force players to find new mixups instead of relying on the very powerful and ambiguous meaty slide tech.)

Aganos

  • Fixed an issue preventing Ruin and Shadow Ruin from ignoring RAAM’s Kryll Shield as intended.
  • Fixed an issue causing Counterhit Warpath (F+HK stompwalk) to deal less hitstun than the non-counterhit version.
  • Standing HK no longer causes a wall splat when used in combos. (This adjustment was made to fix some seriously broken things that happen if you cancel the wall splat hit into his enders)

Hisako

  • Fixed a bug that allowed her to Instinct Cancel her Influence command throws.

Cinder

  • Fixed a bug causing Burnout to end if the opponent performs a counterbreaker.
  • Increased the size of the detonation blast on Pyrobombs that are stuck to the enemy to ensure that they don’t whiff when the opponent’s body moves them away from their center.

Aria

  • Fixed a bug causing Shadow Crescendo to hit on frame 1 instead of frame 3 as intended.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause opponents to drop quickly to floor if Counter Hit while grounded by close HK.
  • Fixed a bug preventing Aria from clearing the Kryll Swarm DOT effect when switching bodies.

Arbiter

  • Bullet damage reduced by about 23% (From 18, to 14. This change was made in part to reduce the Jump Gun one chance break damage that Arbiter gets. We think this option is a cool way to spend bullets and want to leave it as a powerful option, but dial it back so that it feels more fair.)
  • Damage Ender damage reduced by ~25%. (This change also helps with the change above to reduce one chance damage from Arbiter. Also, because Arbiter players tend to use Grenades or Bullets after enders, the various ender types are rarely used over the Damage Ender because it hits much harder than the other enders. Now you may have reason to use the other enders more often.)
  • Grenade Respawn time changed from 14 seconds to 15 seconds. (Grenades are a very powerful offensive and defensive tool. This small adjustment will give Arbiter players roughly one grenade less per match to use as they see fit.)
  • Fixed a bug causing some hits of the Overhead Slash ender to not be breakable during opener ender situations.

Gargos

  • Fixed a bug that allowed Minions to attack between rounds sometimes.
  • Fixed an issue that could cause command grab followups to interrupt combo breakers.
  • Sadistic Hurl now causes a blowout after an ultra combo. (This prevents super long quad-ultras for now so people can get back to playing.)

General RAAM

  • Reduced the active frames on Kryll Shield Attack from 4 to 2. (Using this as a meaty requires better timing now, and it is easy to backdash out of these setups for the opponent.)
  • Crouching HP is now 0 on hit instead of -1, allowing it to combo into Medium Decimation as intended.
  • Fixed a bug causing RAAM to pass through opponents when trying to throw them into the corner with a back throw.
  • Fixed a bug causing Shadow Dominance, Ender Dominance, and Shadow Kryll Rush to build meter for RAAM.
  • Fixed an issue that allowed RAAM to combo off of his level 1 Splat ender midscreen.
  • Adjusted the size of the grab attempt box on Kryll Rush to match the Shadow Version so that it won’t grab characters who are behind him on occasion.
  • Fixed an issue making RAAM breakable after landing a Shadow Kryll Rush.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause your opponent’s gravity to permanently change if you attempted a counter breaker during your OTG stomps on a specific frame.

No Changes

  • Glacius
  • Thunder
  • TJ Combo
  • Shadow Jago
  • Kim Wu
  • Tusk
  • Rash
  • Mira

Patch 3.3.1: The Eyedol Hotfix Patch - August 24, 2016 (discussion)

System

  • Prepped Earth defenses and charged up Ultratech defense batteries. Gargos Alert: DEFCON 4 ETA: IMMINENT

Omen

  • Fixed an issue that could prevent some auto doubles from moving close enough to hit after a 1-hit cross-under Shadow Slide.

Kim Wu

  • Fixed an issue that could cause some Enders to drop when cancelled late after certain manuals or doubles.

Gargos

  • Fixed a bug causing HP attacks to build less meter than intended.
  • Fixed a bug causing Minions to build meter back for Gargos when they attack.
  • Medium and Heavy Portal Punches now build the same amount of meter as the Light Portal Punch.
  • Minion normal attack damage reduced by 25%
  • Stoneskin Explosion no longer causes a hard knockdown and the launch velocities have changed to make this closer to even on hit. You won’t get a safe minion summon after landing this anymore.

Eyedol

  • Warrior Jumping HP deals 11 frames less blockstun. (Previously, when used on the way up, this left Eyedol at +6. Now it leaves him at -7 when performed on the way up, making this difficult-to-anti-air normal much more of a risk when used in this way.)
  • Warrior Jumping HP attackbox starts 1 frame later and ends 7 frames sooner. It reaches behind him less far as well. (We never intended this move to be active for so long after the swing, or to be able to cross up in odd situations)
  • During instinct, the Meteor Shower after Shadow Crushing Swing comes out 20 frames later and a bit farther away from Eyedol. It still juggles on hit, but on whiff or block, opponents will have an opportunity to hit you before the Meteor Shower starts, preventing it from ever coming out.
  • Shadow Meteor Shower meteors deal 3 points of damage, down from 7 points of damage.
  • Fixed a bug preventing Shadow Meteor Shower from dealing chip damage.
  • Fixed a bug causing the Shadow Counter in Mage stance to use two meters if they were available.

Patch 3.4: The Shadow Lords Patch - September 20, 2016 (discussion)

System Changes

  • Shadow Lords, a new single-player and multi-player mode, has been added to the game.
  • Changes to the input system so that after crossing under a character your next move motion is read correctly. (If you notice any bugs possibly related to this change, please report them with full reproduction steps on the forums to help us quickly track down and fix them)

Jago

  • Shadow Tigers Fury damage reduced by ~27%
  • Tigers Fury Ender damage reduced by ~10% (Jago is a great all around character who doesn’t struggle at all when trying to open the opponent up, especially in season 3. We feel that he can cash out a bit too hard considering his dominant toolset, especially with a few of his 1 chance break combos. This adjustment should help a bit.)
  • Shadow Wind Kick is no longer Throw Invulnerable. (Having a move that crushes lows, is projectile invulnerable, throw invulnerable, and travels nearly it’s full distance in 12 frames, and is +2 on block is a bit too much utility for 1 meter. This move still does all of those things, except it is no longer immune to throws. Jago players will need to use Tiger’s Fury, Backdash, or Jump to avoid throws instead of Shadow Wind Kick going forward.)
  • Fixed a bug where the second Endokukens thrown by Jago in instinct mode would not be destroyed by moves intended to destroy projectiles.

Sabrewulf

  • Shadow Eclipse damage increased by ~10%
  • The flipout on crouching LK launches the enemy a little higher, delaying their landing a bit. This leads to better mixup opportunities afterward. (Players will need to adjust the timing of their setups here a bit, so hopefully the increased opportunities make up for that.)
  • When Hamstring hits or is blocked, Sabrewulf will be invulnerable to throws for 11 frames (while sliding past you) to avoid some really nasty bugs in which he could be throw by armored opponents while he was under them, causing the animations to severely break. (You can still punish this move in all the same ways with the same timing, included throws. This only effects the middle of the move, where an armored character could still make a grab attempt.)

Glacius

  • Puddle Punch Changes
    • Light Puddle Punch is now vulnerable from frames 0-3 on startup, but still starts a grounded combo.
    • Medium Puddle Punch now causes a soft knockdown instead of starting a grounded combo.
    • Heavy Puddle Punch has 3 addition frames of invulnerability, making it invulnerable until after the first active frame.
    • (In the end, it seemed pretty odd to have a reversal that starts a full grounded combo so easily. Previously, all three versions of Puddle Punch had similar invulnerability windows. Now the Light version functions more like other opener special moves (though it is still invulnerable for a few frames while underground). Medium’s invulnerability hasn’t changed at all, but it now knocks opponents down. The Heavy version has additional invulnerability when coming up out of the ground, which means he can no longer be thrown out of this version. These changes will require a tiny bit of adjustment from Glacius players, but keep this move a bit more in line with the rest of the game. The heavy version, in particular, will be very reliable anti air at a distance he normally couldn’t reach, and is a much more reliable reversal that hits as hard as a heavy Jago DP!)
  • Fixed a bug causing the opponent to flash as if they were attempting to break a Shadow Linker during Opener Shadow Hail

Thunder

  • Light Sammamish no longer has full body invulnerability, but all Sammamish followups are once again available after this move. (Having a meterless reversal is proving to be too powerful in Thunder’s hands. It allows him to save meter for juggle cashouts and shadow call of earth much more easily, making not only his wakeup harder to pressure, but his entire toolset more loaded and reliable.)
  • Sammamish and Shadow Sammamish damage reduced by 10%
  • Skyfall damage reduced by 10% (These changes were made because Thunder is getting absolutely monstrous damage from Sammamish loops. The damage after this change may still be too high, so we’ll keep an eye on it and make future adjustments as needed.)
  • Dropkick damage increased by 15%
  • The Call of Sky buff now lasts 10 seconds (up from 8 seconds)

Sadira

  • Heavy Widows Bite now causes a hard knockdown during juggles.
  • Jumping LK causes a flipout
  • Standing LK causes a flipout
  • Standing LK can be jump canceled on hit
  • Jumping LK has more range and a larger attackbox than before.
  • Standing LK is active for 2 addition frames. (These changes should give Sadira players a few more options for converting juggles into dangerous situations for the opponent should she lack the meter to cash out.)
  • Jumping LP no longer pushes enemies away. (This is to assist with the j.LP xx Widows Drop chain combo that no one really uses because why would you?)
  • Widows Drop now causes a ground bounce against airborne opponents.
  • Widows Drop now hits 1 frame sooner, and the first active frame is wide and near her upperbody. (This will now combo, if well spaced, from jumping LP, leading to new juggle paths.)
  • New Combo Trait – Auto Launcher – Press F+HK during any auto double to automatically perform the Leg Launcher and transition into juggle combos. Opponents can always break the Leg Launcher hit with a heavy breaker. (Sadira was the only character in the game without a real combo/combat trait, as her original one was juggles and now pretty much everyone juggles. This new trait gives her something to call her own and lets her easily transition confirms into difficult to break juggles.)
  • Increased height of Crouching HK attackbox so that juggles into it are a bit more reliable.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause Shadow Widows Bite to be breakable as an opener unexpectedly.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed Sadira to summon an Instinct Mode projectile while in a flipout reaction.

Orchid

  • Fixed a bug that allowed Orchid to summon an Instinct Mode projectile while in a flipout reaction.
  • Fixed a bug preventing Orchid from starting combos if she whiffed the first two hits of her Rekkas, and then only the 2nd hit of the two-hit overhead connected (or it caused a counterhit).

Spinal

  • Jumping MK (Divekick) now has 6 frames less landing recovery.
  • Jumping MK (Divekick) now deals 5 less frames of blockstun. (These two changes combined make the Divekick 1 frame better than it was on block, but also lets Spinal move earlier than before, allowing him to use well-spaced Divekicks in pressure or for mobility. )
  • Fixed a bug causing the recovery from Run to turn and face the opponent inappropriately.
  • Fixed a bug preventing Spinal from cancelling into an Ultra Combo when hitting from near max distance of Soul Sword.

Fulgore

  • Cyber Uppercut no longer auto corrects to face the opponent when you pip cancel into it from any other special move. It will always face the way Fulgore was already traveling. (This technique is very strong, but was proving a bit too strong when Fulgore could change directions on a dime to punish you for jumping over him.)
  • There is now a minimum height restriction on Shadow Air Eye Lasers when cancelling into them from a Cyber Uppercut. (It was never intended for you to be able to do Air Laser so close to the ground that you became safe, let alone advantaged. This move should be properly punishable as intended now.)
  • Increased the Reactor Spin Speed penalty by 33% when performing Teleports. (Repeated teleports are going to have a slightly more noticeable impact on your total number of pips gained per game now, but the strength of Fulgore’s teleport in neutral and during mixups is unaffected.)
  • Ground Shadow Eye Beam pushes opponents away slightly farther and is now +25 on hit, allowing Fulgore to link into Heavy Blade Dash or Heavy Eye Beam from long distance for new combo opportunities.
  • Fixed a bug preventing Fulgore from cancelling Heavy Eye Laser into Devastation Beam.

TJ Combo

  • Fixed a bug causing the raw/opener version of Shoot Toss to deal the (greatly reduced) damage of the in-combo version of the move. A raw Shoot Toss now deals the intended ~12% (40 pts of damage) up from ~3% (14 pts of damage) (Shoot Toss damage was pretty pitiful due to this bug, making it a lower value option when going for resets. This should increase fear of the move and allow success with other options more often as well.)
  • Raised the damage on the in-combo version of Shoot Toss by ~10%
  • Fixed a bug that could cause Last Breath to not trigger if TJ was hit out of an Armored move. (We were sad to see this bug cost Thrash Heavy a game in Top 8, but we had been working on a fix for this for a while and were able to submit one a few weeks before that event. We know bugs that affect tournament matches suck, but this one took a lot of effort to fix. Sorry it took so long!)
  • TJ was missing a counterhit window on the startup of many of his special moves. These have been added, so you should see counterhits occur against TJ as expected now.

Maya

  • Dagger Assault Ender now leaves Maya +2 on her opponent (was +0) (We still feel this move as a lot of untapped potential, so hopefully this change encourages players in the wild to try using this ender a bit more.)
  • Previously, when throwing daggers, they had a much larger attackbox for the first 2 frames of flight. The size of this attackbox has been reduced by about 45%. The size of the attackbox for the rest of the flight is unchanged. (Thinking back, we know we made the attackbox on daggers larger for 2 frames to avoid close range whiff situations, but can’t figure out why we made them SO big for those 2 frames. This size is much more reasonable.)

Kan Ra

  • Medium and Heavy Clutch have expanded range and are active for 1 frame longer. (This is to help deal with characters who can get up very high, mainly Gargos.)
  • Shadow Swarm, when performed from neutral, now lasts for 9 seconds (up from 6). The duration of the ender versions is unchanged. (While powerful, this move has seen a massive drop in use due to the increased startup time and awesome power of the Shadow Spike for the same meter spent. This change will hopefully see players spending meter on Shadow Swarm once in a while.)
  • Shadow Sand Pit can no longer build meter back for Kan-Ra (As a general guideline, Shadow moves should not build meter back. This puts the move in line philosophically with that idea.)
  • Fixed a bug allowing players to juggle into Shadow Whirl after holding back during Clutch (Kan-Ra was never intended to get grounded combos off of Clutch without recapturing using Antlion. We fixed most of these cases a long while ago, but this one remained until now.)

Riptor

  • Made Back+HP Flame chain combo juggle a bit more reliably
  • Moved the manual cancel window up 1 frame on both Medium Linkers to allow crouching medium attacks to manual in these situations.
  • Fixed a bug causing jumping LK to be breakable as a Medium.

Omen

  • Throw now has a manual cancel window on frame 54 and has 8 more frames of recovery, leaving it +3 (down from +11). This means that you’ll still be able to combo normal attacks in the corner with the exact same timing, including the 5 frame buffer it used to have, but you will not be able to combo into specials attacks like slide and flurry anymore. Instinct cancels are all still intact as well. (Throw into ambiguous special move of choice in the corner is proving too strong on Omen. We will evaluate a change like this in the future for similar throws on other characters if they prove problematic.)

Aganos

  • Stomp Walk now crushes lows until the 1st active frame of each step.
  • Stomp Walk 1st hit is now -3 on block (was -10) at zero chunks
  • Stomp Walk 2nd and 3rd hits are now -3 on block (was -5) at zero chunks (Stomp walk was a pretty bad move. Now it’s a pretty good one.)
  • Fixed a bug causing far standing HK to not match the changes last update to close standing HK. Now both versions no longer cause a wall splat when used in a combo to avoid enders afterward breaking.
  • Fixed a bug causing Aganos to continue sliding forward if Spinal absorbed his Ruin or Shadow Ruin attacks.

Hisako

  • Fixed a bug that could cause followups to On Ryo Zan to be unbreakable if the first hit of On Ryo Zan whiffed.

Cinder

  • Manually detonated Pyrobombs can now hit opponents OTG when they are laying on their back, launching them into the air. (The combat team thought this would be a fun way to make use of some of your pyrobombs that didn’t stick, so we tested it out and loved it. We hope you do too.)
  • Reduced the damage of opener Shadow Fission by 45% (This is to reduce Cinder’s very high one chance break damage)
  • Reduced the chip damage of Shadow Fission from 40 pts of damage to 30 pts of damage. (This takes it from about 11% to about 8%, still very worth doing, but not so great as to force players to want to save meter only for this.)
  • Fixed a bug causing him to land with additional recovery from jumping attacks if he was hit out of a Trailblazer special.

Aria

  • The bombs from Standing HK, Standing Close HK, Crouching HK, and Jumping HK are now breakable and counter breakable. (This should make her vortex gameplay a bit less guaranteed to setup and maintain)
  • The above change required us to add hitstop to the bombs, making juggles feel slightly different, and requiring us to change the launch velocities on the bombs a bit to allow similar juggles. (Aria players will want to spend a little time in the training mode making a few small adjustments to their bomb juggle timing after this change.)

Shadow Jago

  • Fixed an issue preventing Shago from passing through very wide opponents when hitting with the tip of Slide.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause Shago to bounce off of thin air during his Divekicks if the opponent was currently blocking or getting hit by a projectile.
  • Fixed a bug causing characters to fly behind Shago after a Surge Slide
  • When Dark Drift (slide) hits or is blocked, Shago will be invulnerable to throws for 11 frames (while sliding past you) to avoid some really nasty bugs in which he could be throw by armored opponents while he was under them, causing the animations to severely break. (You can still punish this move in all the same ways, included throws. This only effects the middle of the move, where an armored character could still make a grab attempt.)
  • Fixed a bug that could cause Dash to come out the wrong way after juggling with Pushkick in the corner.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause Dark Drift to not change sides with very wide opponents when landed from maximum distance.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause Divekick linkers to whiff from max distance.

Kim Wu

  • Shadow Firecracker now steps forward like the Heavy Firecracker does. (Hopefully a few less Shadow Counters whiff now, but some still will.)
  • If you have at least 1 Dragon before landing a Dragon Counter, you can now Dragon Cancel out to start a combo. (You cannot spend the Dragon you just earned from the successful Counter to Dragon Cancel. You need to have had one beforehand. This allows her to get a full grounded combo off of a Dragon Counter vs a grounded opponent, so we’ll be keeping an eye on how strong this is and may remove or reduce the damage dealt by the parry itself in the future to compensate.)
  • You gain a Dragon on Frame 2 of a successful Counter instead of Frame 0, so it is possible (though rare) to be hit out of this before you gain a Dragon. (This change was necessary to allow Dragon Cancels from Dragon Counter)
  • Firecracker Ender’s resources granted have changed
    • Lv1 – Gain 1 Dragon
    • Lv2 – Gain 1 Dragon and some Shadow Meter
    • Lv3 – Gain 1 Dragon, some Shadow Meter, and some Health
    • Lv4 – Gain 1 Dragon, some Shadow Meter, some Health, and some Instinct Meter
    • (This should make higher levels of this ender more appealing)
  • New Command Normal: Dragon Sweep – DF+HK
    • This move is a step forward sweep kick that hits low, causes a hardknockdown, and hits on frame 14. It is -5 on block.
    • You can cancel into this move in most places where you could cancel into a special move.
    • (Use this to add a little high/low mixup to your pressure, alongside light Dragon Dance. Kim having a low threat from a bit farther away will cause opponents to block low pre-emptively more often, preventing people from walking out of range of Kim’s already strong footsies game.)
  • Crouching MK is now -1 on block (was -2)
  • Crouching HK is now -2 on block (was -4)
  • Fixed a bug that could cause Super Flash to get stuck if she was hit out of a Lv2, 3, or 4 Dragon Dance ender just as it started.

Tusk

  • Stagger Ender now adds 100 KV instead of 50 KV. You must use a Shadow move or throw if you wish to continue the combo, as any other hit will now blow out. (Tusk’s combo game devolved because of this move, as players used it essentially as an unbreakable linker into pretty respectable damage. We want to keep the midscreen mixups it affords, but we have to say goodbye to the cool looking repeated stagger ender combos in order to do that, as they were too degenerate and frustrating to get hit by.)
  • Shadow Immortal Spirit now triggers a Shadow Front Step that is projectile immune. Pressing any button during the startup or the step portion of this move will trigger the Shadow Shoulder portion at no additional cost.
  • Shadow Shoulder is now immune to projectiles. (Tusk was having just a little too much trouble with characters who have projectiles that cover the ground, preventing him from using the non-shadow Immortal Spirit moves to dip under them. The changes to this move should give him a few more opportunities in those matchups.)
  • Shadow Air Skull Splitter now fires an additional explosion, and all explosions are spaced farther from eachother, coving more of the screen.
  • Air Skull Splitter now spawns explosions on whiff or block when landing. These explosions can destroy incoming projectiles and make this move a bit safer on block than before. The number of explosions is based on the strength used.
  • Air Skull Splitter no longer causes a ground bounce on standing opponents. It instead causes stagger and can go straight into auto doubles. The explosions do not come out on hit.
  • Tusk can now cancel the landing of Air Skull Splitter into Shadow moves on hit, whiff, or block. Try cancelling into the new Shadow Step to approach behind a wave of projectiles outside of instinct mode. (All of these changes combine to give Tusk a few new approach and attack options.)
  • Fixed a bug causing Jumping MP to count as a Heavy Attack, both in priority for trades and for breakability.

Rash

  • The size of the VFX trails on Big Bad Boot opener have changed to help the opponent see which strength is being used. (This keeps Boot in line with other moves that juggle easily and have visual tells to help breakability.)
  • Crouching MK is now -2 on block (was -1)
  • Crouching HK is now -4 on block (was -1)
  • Fixed an issue that could cause Rash to try to eat a projectile after being hit out of eating a projectile.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed Rash to summon an Instinct Mode projectile while in a flipout reaction.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed Rash to manually perform a Shadow Ram Horns after his Battlemaniacs combo but stay ‘in’ the combo trait. This lead to instances of the Battlemaniacs ender being blocked.

Arbiter

  • Overshield Recharge is now -11 on block (was -1). (We never intended for this to be unpunishable on block, and it ended up feeling like a bug or oversight to us. Consider it corrected. This move acts the same was as before if it is not blocked.)
  • The window to fire a 2nd and 3rd shot after a jumping Carbine attack has been reduced from 22 frames to 5 frames. This means that you cannot wait for an extended period before firing again on the way down. (Jump gun combos are still possible, but they have much stricter timing and require more ammo.)
  • Gun damage raised by 10% (We lowered it primarily due to the jump gun loop, which is now a lot weaker.)
  • Self Grenade now causes a stagger on grounded characters. This means that if you block it as a reversal and Arbiter doesn’t have Overshield, he will be punishable because he is still standing. This also opens new combo opportunities for Arbiter. This still causes a soft knockdown vs airborne opponents. (The reversal option had some un-exploited weaknesses, but was still proving too frustrating for players. You can simply block and punish this normally now with no crazy tricks.)
  • The size of the VFX trails on Rushing Slash (qcf+P) and Overhead Slash (qcb+P) openers have changed to help the opponent see which strength is being used.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed Arbiter to whiff cancel into Enders during a grenade blast. (This bug lead to huge unbreakable damage.)
  • Fixed an issue that allowed Arbiter to use Tack On: Carbine to cash out combos without performing an ender. This change also required us to change how bullet damage during non-ender Tack On is calculated, so you’ll notice a very slight damage increase in Tack On bullet situations with some additional potential damage left behind on top of that.
  • Fixed a bug preventing him from special canceling his MP HP and HP HP target combos from maximum range.
  • Fixed a bug preventing other characters from properly parrying a grenade.

Mira

  • The KV inflicted by Bloody Seekers has been increased by 20% and deals the full amount even during low KV juggle states. (While cool, some of the Seeker juggle loops were just too long to ask players to be hit by with nothing breakable happening. This change shortens these combos, but they remain a great option for guaranteed damage.)
  • The potential damage inflicted by Instinct’s Vampire Mist was decreased by 50%. (The use of this in combos dealing absurd damage needed to be reduced. You can still get huge damage with these setups, however.)
  • The recoverable health restored during Instinct’s Vampire Miss has been increased by 25%. (To compensate for dealing less damage, we wanted to try letting her heal back a bit more, letting her go a little more nuts with high-cost moves attempting resets and mixups.)
  • Increase the amount of recoverable health restored from Bite linkers has been increased by 50% (from 10 points per bite up to 15) (Mira now has a more consistent way of recovering her blood health from midscreen without spending shadow meter, and entering the combo system keeps the risk/reward nicely in check. This should both allow Mira to enjoy spending more blood health, and should make using the bite linkers a bit more appealing)
  • Fixed a bug where Mira would not jump to her full height when performing a jump attack after getting hit out of her air dashes.
  • Fixed a bug that let her cancel out of Medium Bloody Seekers early if her opponent was currently in a reaction.
  • Fixed a bug where canceling out of Mira’s air dashes maintained some physics properties of an air dash. This allowed players to perform low to the ground attacks without going through Mira’s full jump height.

Gargos

  • If a minion is knocked down, he will not get up while Gargos is in a reaction from being hit. (This means that if you strike a minion during a combo, you wont have to worry about that minion getting up and attacking you until your combo is complete, but you’ll still need to worry about minions you haven’t hit. This can also help Gargos sometimes because a minion wont get up to take a 2nd hit from the attacker. We feel this is a good change for the game on both ends; less frustrating for Gargos’ opponent, who gets to complete more combos, but Gargos’ minions will survive in situations where they couldn’t before, allowing them to assist him later.)
  • Reduced the damage dealt by ranged auto doubles by 40%
  • Reduced the damage on Portal Punch Ender by 10% (This change is to reduce the frustration of getting hit by Portal Punches, which Gargos will have a harder time turning into significant damage now.)
  • Reduced the travel distance of the Air Light Crusher to reduce player’s ability to run away using it. (Gargos ability to run away is still present, but this particular move made it far too easy in a few matchups.)
  • Reduced the jump height of Forward and Backward Double Jumps by 20% (Gargos was getting up a bit higher than we intended, even above some of the highest reach anti-airs in the game. This change should stop Gargos from jumping without punishment as often.)
  • Fixed a bug causing the ender version of Izuna Drop to cause a hard knockdown. (We may have fixed this the other way in a previous update, but that was a mistake. This ender is not intended to cause a hard knockdown.)
  • Fixed a bug that allowed Gargos to perform Auto Doubles, Linkers, and Enders against an opponent with no vulnerable boxes if he activated Instinct right after setting someone down from his command grab.

General RAAM

  • The inputs for his Ultra and Stage Ultra has swapped. QCF+3K is now the Ultra, and QCF+3P is now Stage Ultra. (This is to help players struggling with getting Kryll Shield Cancels when they wanted Ultras)
  • Shadow Kryll Rush moves 50% faster across the screen and is now immune to projectiles.
  • After any successful Kryll Rush, RAAM is now immune to projectiles for the duration of the stab animation. (These two changes makes an absolutely massive difference in battles against zoning characters.)
  • Decreased the potential damage buildup during Instinct mode by 12.5% (We want RAAM to hit hard, and he still absolutely does, but just ever so slightly less now that he can get in a bit easier.)
  • Fixed a bug causing Kryll Shield to think that certain projectile types spawned from normal attacks (such as Eyedol Mage HP) were melee hits, which removed the Kryll Shield.
  • Fixed a bug causing Light Emergence to not have any lower body invulnerability, as it was advertised to have. It still doesn’t have lower body invulnerability on startup, but it does for all of its active frames.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed RAAM to cancel his Dominance stomps into normals on a specific frame.

Eyedol

  • Made adjustments to the chances to switch heads in each mode. Players should automatically switch more often now, but the team will be watching this closely and will make future adjustments as needed if this proves to be too much or too little.
  • Warrior Standing MP is now +1 on block (was +2)
  • Warrior Crouching MP is now +1 on block (was +4) (Crouching MP hits on frame 6 with long range and low pushback, making this move very dominant during Eyedol’s close pressure. The move is still strong at +1, but now the opponent has options to challenge it.)
  • Jumping HP Animation has changed to make it cover much less space, and it starts up 2 frames slower as well.
  • 10 frames more recovery has been added to Telestrike (We wanted to give players a bit more time to punish this move on whiff or block.)
  • LT and MED Bolt strikes are -12 on block (was -9)
  • Throw damage reduced 20%
  • B+MP Blast command normal has 6 addtional frames of startup
  • B+MP Energy Blast command normal is no longer cancelable into special moves (This move is meant to be used as a way to check the opponent’s advancing movement. Allowing him to cancel into a high/low mixup from nearly full screen away made his matches against some characters a little too dominant in Mage mode.)
  • F+MP Overhead command normal has 5 additional frames of startup
  • F+MP Overhead command normal is -4 on block (was -1)
  • F+MP Overhead command normal is no longer lower body invulnerable (Eyedol’s f+MP overhead remains a very strong move due to its long range, recapture ability vs. jumping away, and can be spaced to make even -4 disadvantage difficult to contest.)
  • Medium Crushing Swing launches enemies slightly higher to accommodate the slower Recapture Overhead.
  • Reduced the distance that Eyedol bounces away after using Mage J.MP and J.HP
  • Meteor Enders are now all +2 or +3 on hit, instead of being punishable. (Was -6, -8, -1, and -15 for each level 1 to 4)
  • Additional KV is now added when performing the Lv1, 2, or 3 Crushing Destroyer enders.
  • Fixed a bug causing Bolt Strike to sometimes hit only once, leading to long damaging unbreakable juggles.
  • Fixed a bug causing Medium Stomp Strike to have longer recovery than intended, screwing up its advantage on hit/block as well. It is now +8 on hit, and +2 on block, as originally intended.
  • Fixed a bug preventing the use of Medium and Heavy normals from attempting to switch heads. (Players were not intended to be able to circumvent switching by avoiding the use of special moves. This fix should contribute to seeing Eyedol switch more often, as intended.)
  • Fixed a bug causing the Lv1, 3, and 4 versions of Crushing Shoulder Ender to have less advantage after the wall splat than intended. A sweep should be possible to combo after all versions now.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed Eyedol to cancel into Instinct when landing from a Crushing Swing on hit or block.
  • Fixed a bug preventing enders from cashing out when opening with Back + MP Blast.
  • Fixed a bug causing the Stomp Strike Rage followup to occur even without charges available.
  • The size of the VFX trails on Crushing Destroyer opener have changed to help the opponent see which strength is being used.
  • Fixed a bug causing the Heavy Crushing Swing to not follow up with the 2nd hit if the 1st hit was a counterhit.
  • Fixed a bug causing the Bolt Strike projectile to stay active even when the opponent performed a counter breaker.
  • Fixed a bug preventing Shadow Crushing Destroyer’s ground bounce vs airborne opponents from working.
  • Fixed a bug causing the recovery from Run to turn and face the opponent inappropriately.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause the recapture hit on Heavy Crushing Swing to autocorrect and face the other direction.
  • Fixed a bug causing Wake Up! to come out on downback + HP occasionally. It will only come out with Back+HP now.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed Eyedol to delay round transitions by punching himself in the face.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause lockups if the Stomp Strike Ender connected with a projectile.
  • Fixed a bug that caused Mage mode’s projectiles to push him away from cornered opponents unexpectedly.
  • Fixed a bug that caused Bolts and Meteors to push Eyedol back against a cornered opponent on block.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause the Lv2 and Lv3 Bolt Strike enders to whiff from maximum range.

Patch 3.5: Quality of Life Patch #1 - November 22, 2016 (discussion)

System Changes

  • Fixed an input bug where players would get the opposite dash intended in various situations while being crossed up.
  • Fixed an input bug where jumping meaty cross-ups were not blockable as expected. (The team is reasonably sure that these fixes are the end of the left/right input issues. We want to thank the community for quickly reporting the issues they found and for their patience. We know its frustrating when fixing one set of problems causes another set of problems, but without taking that step the game may have forever had left/right issues, and we felt it was important to squash them once and for all. Please quickly report any other issues you find related to left/right inputs.)
  • Fixed an issue that would cause Character Portraits at Character select to appear blackened out

Shadow Lords

  • Fixed an issue where the player could not fight a mission they attempted to deploy to with a Sub 60% success rate
  • Fixed an issue where performing a Double KO on boss Gargos can result in a failed mission
  • Fixed an issue where the user did not retain Astral Plane after unlocking and then rebooting the title
  • Fixed an issue that resulted in Boss Gargos with Full Instinct and 1 HP to stay on the ground until timer reached 0 after being hit by General RAAM’s Shadow Domination
  • Fixed an issue where certain character enders were not triggering Vampire Bat and Snake guardian Abilities

Jago

  • Fixed a bug that let Jago cancel directly into a Tiger’s Fury while charging an Endokuken by kara-cancelling a dash input.

Sabrewulf

  • Raised the damage on Medium Ragged Edge Linker by ~16% so that it deals similar damage to other medium linkers in the game.
  • Raised the damage on Light Hamstring Linker by 70%
  • Raised the damage on Medium Leaping Slash Linker by 87%
  • Raised the damage on Heavy Hamstring and Leaping Slash Linkers by 37% (These linkers only have two versions each, making them a bit easier to break. They now do more damage to compensate.)

Glacius

  • Fixed a bug where Heavy Hail would be destroyed if the player was backed up against an Aganos wall.

Thunder

  • Added missing counterhit windows on the following moves: Shadow Call of Earth (QCB+PP)

Sadira

  • Fixed a bug that let Sadira circumvent the combo system using LK jump cancels when not in instinct. Performing these now will give you the expected Auto Doubles and Linkers.
  • Updated the rules for canceling jump startup so players don’t get linkers and autodoubles before using an opener in a combo.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause super flash to get stuck if she was hit out of her Lv2 or Lv3 Web Cling enders
  • Fixed a bug that caused hitting with widows drop on the same frame of the opponent’s landing to cause a ground bounce instead of the expected ground reaction.
  • Added missing counterhit windows on the following moves: Light & Shadow Blade Demon (QCF+LP or QCF+PP), Web Cling (While in air QCB+P), Widow’s Bite (QCF+P), Shadow Widow’s Bite (QCF+PP)
  • Fixed a bug where Sadira’s Shadow Widow’s bite would become unbreakable when performed in a combo started with a normal if no non-projectile move was used before the Shadow Widow’s Bite hit.

Orchid

  • Fixed a bug that let Orchid cancel directly into a Knee Buster while charging her 3rd Rekka by kara-cancelling a dash input.

Spinal

  • New Shadow Move: Shadow Skull Summon (DD + 3P)
  • Spends 1 meter to summon 3 skulls.
  • This move is not fast, so be careful where you use it. (S2 Spinal was a very momentum based character who needed to work hard to get started but not very hard after that. Now, because skulls vanish when he is hit, he loses his momentum more easily and must make smarter decisions on offense. Adding the ability to turn meter back into skulls should make it much less difficult for a Spinal player to get his momentum going, so losing your momentum won’t be as crippling.)
  • Increased the meter gain from Searing Skulls by 100% (Looking back, the team feels like the big thing we missed in Spinal’s S3 changes was meter gain. Spinal used to drain his opponent’s shadow meter, giving them less and him more. Our changes to the curses were mostly intended to make Spinal’s opponents stronger by allowing them more opportunities to use Shadow and Instinct meter against him. While we are happy with that change, Spinal is simply gaining too little Shadow Meter compared to S2, and it lowers his options throughout the course of the entire match. This change, in conjunction with the instinct bouncing skulls, can give Spinal crazy amount of meter to work with, and he even has a new Shadow move to spend it on!)
  • Added missing counterhit windows on the following moves: Dive Kick (j.MK), Power Devour (B+LP)

Fulgore

  • Added missing counterhit windows on the following moves: Plasma port (QCB+K), Shadow Plasma Port (QCB+KK), Air Shadow Eye Laser (While in air QCB+PP)
  • Fixed a bug where canceling a normal into Shadow Eye Laser sometimes gave you the linker version making it breakable.
  • Fixed a bug where Fulgore’s Cyber Uppercut would autocorrect after the flash.

TJ Combo

  • Made TJ Combo’s Flying Knee Special no longer cross over crouching opponents. (There were cases where linkers would whiff if performed after the Flying Knee.)

Maya

  • After activating Dagger Assault, the first dagger strikes now occur 50 frames sooner than before. (We think you’ll notice it is vastly easier to start Maya’s pressure after activating Dagger Assault now. Please experiment with it. The team is still watching and will consider future tweaks to this move as needed.)
  • Added missing counterhit windows on the following moves: Air Mantis (While in air D+HP), Temperance Strike/Vengeance Strike/Enmity Strike (QCF+LP, MP, or HP), Shadow Spirit Slicer (QCF+PP), Leap Kick (QCF+K), Shadow Leap Kick (QCF+KK), Axe Kick (F+HK)

Kan Ra

  • Added missing counterhit windows on the following moves: Shadow Swarm (QCB+KK), Spike (QCF+K), Shadow Spike (QCF+KK), Whirl (QCF+P), Shadow Whirl (QCF+PP)
  • Fixed a bug where Kan-Ra could not move forward after performing Clutch while backed into the corner.

Riptor

  • Added missing counterhit windows on the following moves: Predator Stance Normals (HP, HK, and F,F+HP) | Non Predator Stance – (F,F+HP), (B,B+HP), (F,F+HK), (B,B+HK), Flame Carpet (DB+HP)
  • Fixed a bug where B+HP Flame Breath in instinct mode did not have the new juggle properties of the non-instinct version.

Omen

  • Meter gain from normals and specials reduced by ~30% (Omen has some outstanding pressure and can keep you blocking his attacks for a long time, which gives him the resources he needs to keep this pressure going. This reduction in resources from this part of his gameplay should reduce how long he can maintain his pressure without taking more risks, but he still has outstanding meter gain on all of his enders.)
  • Shadow Slide is now -8 on block (was -0) (In the end, the fact that almost none of the characters can shadow counter this move made it a bit too degenerate for frametraps. This change will force Omen players to use it more thoughtfully.)
  • Added missing counterhit windows on the following moves: Shadow Rashakuken (QCF+PP), Orda Shield (QCB+P), Shadow Orda Shield (QCB+PP)

Aganos

  • Added missing counterhit windows on the following moves: Payload Assault (QCF+P), Shadow Payload Assault (QCF+PP), Relinquish (While holding a peacemaker QCF+P)
  • Relinquish no longer whiffs if performed next to an opponent.

Hisako

  • Added missing counterhit windows on the following moves: Influence (QCB+P), Shadow Influence (QCB+PP), Air On Ryo Zan (While in the air QCF+P), Shadow Air On Ryo Zan (While in the air QCF+PP)

Cinder

  • Added missing counterhit windows on the following moves: Shadow Fission (QCB+PP), Inferno (QCB+K), Shadow Inferno (QCB+KK), Shadow Trailblazer (B,F+KK), Pyrobomb (B,F+P), Both Ground and Air Shadow Pyrobomb (B,F+PP)

Aria

  • Fixed a bug causing counterhit c.hk to not juggle opponents properly.
  • Added missing counterhit windows on the following moves: Medium Allegro (While in blade body F,D,DF+MP), Heavy Allegro (While in blade body F,D,DF+HP)

Shadow Jago

  • Added missing counterhit windows on the following moves: Dark Demise (QCF+K), Shadow Dark Demise (QCF+KK), Annihilation (While in instinct QCF+LP+LK)
  • Fixed a bug where a player could back dash when inputting a forward dash while dashing under an opponent.

Kim Wu

  • Fixed a bug that was preventing players from using Dragon Cancel during Dragon Sweep
  • Fix for a bug that could cause light dragon dance to cause a ground bounce on a standing opponent on the first frame they landed from a jump.
  • Added missing counterhit windows on the following moves: Close MP, Close HP, Medium/Heavy Dragon Kick (QCF+MK, HK), Dragon Dance (QCB+K), Shadow Dragon Dance (QCB+KK), Dragon Dash (KKK)
  • Fixed a bug causing the first hit of the heavy kick auto double to blow out and preventing the second hit from blowing out.

Tusk

  • Fixed a bug that let him cancel out of backstab mid-move.
  • Added missing counterhit windows on the following moves: Spine Splitter (B+HP), Immortal Spirit (QCF+K), Shadow Immortal Spirit (QCF+KK)
  • Fixed a bug preventing players from canceling openers into Ultra in instinct mode.

Rash

  • Added missing counterhit windows on the following moves: Rash Bash (B+HP), Battering Ram (QCF+P or F,F+P), Shadow Battering Ram (QCF+PP), Wicked Tongue (PPP)

Arbiter

  • Added missing counterhit windows on the following moves: Light/Medium/Shadow Mercy’s Demise (QCF+LP/MP/ PP), Light Truth Seeker (QCB+LP), Prophet’s Bane (QCB+K), Shadow Prophet’s Bane (QCB+KK), Interrogator (F+HK), Particular Justice (DF+HK), Fire Weapon (D+HK, J+HK), Throw Grenade (PPP)

Mira

  • Fixed a bug where Mira could perform air actions out of the Mist form when on the ground, using up heath.
  • Fixed a bug with Mira’s mist where it was possible to not apply potential damage while it was attached.
  • Added missing counterhit windows on the following moves: Blood Seeker (QCF+P) Shadow Blood Seeker (QCF+PP), Trephine (QCF+K), Shadow Trephine (QCF+KK)

Gargos

  • If you perform an Ultra on Gargos, his minions will now be instantly destroyed. (No more hilariously tragic late double KOs)
  • Fixed a bug where Gargos could perform autodoubles if just his minions hit while landing from a jump attack.
  • Fixed a bug where hitting Gargos’s portal punches with character attacks would disable the Fists’ ability to hit the opponent. (We know some of you thought this was a feature of the move, but it was a bug.)
  • Fixed a bug where the minions would be on the wrong side of Gargos if he grabbed them while the opponent jumped over him.
  • Added missing counterhit windows on the following moves: HK, Air Reckoning (While in air QCF+K), Minion Commands (QCB+K), Shadow Oblivion (QCF+PP)

General RAAM

  • Fixed a bug that could cause Heavy Autodouble to whiff from some ranges
  • Added missing counterhit windows on the following moves: Shadow Dominance (QCB+PP)

Eyedol

  • Fixed a bug causing Eyedol to be invulnerable for the final four frames of his Backward Telestrike
  • Added missing counterhit windows on the following moves: Light/Medium/Shadow Crushing Swing (QCB+LP/MP/PP)

Patch 3.6: Quality of Life Patch #2 - December 20, 2016 (discussion)

System Changes

  • Breaking a combo now restores 50% of your potential damage (was 100%)
  • Passive potential damage regeneration now begins after 3 seconds (was 1 second)
  • Huge thanks to the community for their feedback on these changes. We are looking forward to seeing how they effects the game in your hands, and to hearing your thoughtful feedback after playing for a few weeks. For those that missed the discussion, these changes are intended to lessen the reward for a successful combo breaker and raise the value of longer combo attempts. They are also intended to lessen the chaos after a successful breaker by leaving the players in a predator/prey situation that favors the player who was able to open his opponent up. As a result of the PD lingering for longer and breakers not restoring all PD, you will also see some tuning to the characters that specialize in dealing lots of PD in this update.
  • Kilgore added to the roster, playable on January 3rd, 2017.

Shadows and Shadow Lords

  • NEW FEATURE! You can now choose Survival vs AI or Shadows without owning a Shadow. This is a great way to earn SP!
  • NEW FEATURE! New content can be unlocked by achieving benchmarks in Shadow Lords Archives. The meter is also visible on single and multiplayer menus. Here's what you can unlock!
    • Gargos Platinum Skin
    • Gargos Gold Skin
    • Orchid Full Character!
    • EXCLUSIVE TO THIS METER: NEW FULGORE COLOR
    • Jago Retro Unlock
  • NEW GUARDIANS (They drop later)
  • OTHER SECRET STUFF!
  • Fixed an issue that would cause UI Issues when viewing Shadow Leaderboards while in active game play
  • Player can now quickly feed Astral Charges to an empty guardian from the Mission Select Loadout!
  • Player can now hold up to 5 of each Guardian Type! (increased from 4)
  • Player can cycle through all available Guardians (of each type) without having to return to Guardian Select menu,
  • Godlike is now locked until player beats Gargos on Challenging.
  • Fixed an issue with the War Room Leaderboards Widget not updating in-real time
  • 3 New Artifacts
    • Common: Corroded Tiger Talisman - Melee Attacks deal 15% Potential Damage
    • Rare: Rusty Tiger Talisman - Melee Attacks deal 25% Potential Damage
    • Epic: Pristine Mummy Talisman - Automatically deal damage to the opponent over time
    • + one top secret artifact
  • 4 New Consumables
    • Common: Re-Fibrillator - Resets KV meter. Can be used twice.
    • Rare: Potion of Luck - Grants a random Rare Consumable
    • Epic: ElixirOfGreaterLuck - Grants a random Epic Consumable
    • Epic: ARES Battle Stim MK III - Grants Shadow Meter Regen for the entire match

Jago

  • Shadow Endokuken damage reduced by ~25% [This change will lower Jago’s unbreakable damage a bit, and lower the total life swing in Jago’s favor when using Instinct Endokuken Juggles.]
  • Shadow Endokuken is now -6 on block at point blank range (was -4) [Shadow Endokuken is no longer safe on block at very close ranges.]
  • The 2nd fireball thrown automatically during Instinct mode has had its meter gain reduced by 50% [Jago’s meter gain was still just a bit high. This change should hopefully be in the final step in bringing his meter gain to where we want it.]

Glacius

  • Opener Shadow Cold Shoulder damage increased by ~15%
  • Linker Shadow Cold Shoulder damage reduced by ~15% [These two changes make the damage output from the opener and linker version of this move identical. Glacius’ unbreakable punish damage goes up slightly, and his lockout combo damage goes down slightly as a result.]
  • Fixed a bug that could prevent Shadow Hail from spawning if your back is to an Aganos wall.
  • Fixed a bug causing the startup of Shadow Cold Shoulder to be missing its hurtboxes.

Orchid

  • Opener Ichi Ni San damage reduced by ~20% [Orchid still hits like a truck, but doesn’t use her other openers very often, even in confirm/punish situations. Thus, we’ve lowered the damage output from her Ichi Ni San rekkas just a bit.]
  • Uncharged Shadow Shockwave deals 6 frames less blockstun and has 15 more frames of recovery. It was +9 on block, and is now -12. [This move is still situationally safe, depending on spacing and matchups, but its value for keeping other unsafe moves safe via Shadow Cancelling is lower.]

Spinal

  • Searing Skull meter gain reduced by 25%. [This is now a 50% increase over its original value, down from the 100% increase from last update. We went a little too far, but Spinal’s meter gain increase is still substantial.]
  • Fixed a bug causing Shadow Summon to Summon 4 skulls instead of 3 during Instinct. No bonus skulls were intended during Instinct.

Fulgore

  • Energy Bolt damage reduced by ~30%
  • Heavy Eye Laser damage reduced by ~37% [Fulgore is getting a bit too much damage off of his projectiles alone, so we are toning their damage output down to encourage a more varied play-style.]
  • Devastation Beam Potential Damage reduced by 30% (This pairs with the PD/Breaker change)
  • Instinct mode reworked
    • No longer sets your spin speed to maximum.
    • No longer prevents you from losing spin speed as you normally would when using energy systems or getting knocked down.
    • Now gives you access to cost-free pip cancels for the duration.
    • [Fulgore was simply building far too much meter. He could completely ignore his own meter mechanics until instinct was available to him, pop it, and be loaded for the rest of the game. This is a big change that will force Fulgore players to respect how their meter works (attacking to build and maintain spin speed, zoning and teleporting to deplete it). It is a berf, however, because Fulgore’s Instinct just got much scarier. If you use energy systems aggressively during instinct, however, you won’t gain much meter during the mode. We feel this change makes Fulgore play much more thoughtfully, and we are looking forward to your feedback after playing as, or against, Fulgore.]

TJ Combo

  • Fixed a bug preventing TJ from performing linkers after his opener Shadow Flying Knee

Kan Ra

  • Shadow Clutch is now immune to projectiles until its active frames are over. [This won’t affect too many matchups, but in a few where Kan-Ra is cornered and his opponent is throwing projectiles from a range where he cannot contest, this should help a great deal.]

Omen

  • Demonic Despair is no longer strike invulnerable on startup. (This pairs with the Breaker/PD changes)

Cinder

  • Reduced meter gain on Inferno by ~44% [Cinder was building far too much meter from this move.]
  • Reduced PD inflicted by Flame Stream and Burnouts by 30% (This pairs with the breaker/PD change)
  • Fixed a bug where certain character ground combo breakers were not removing Cinder’s burnout status effect.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause OTG Detonators to sometimes whiff specific characters in specific screen positions.

Aria

  • [Developer’s note: We feel Aria may be the strongest in the game, but we didn’t want to change her interesting playstyle when trying to reel her back in. The PD/Breaker change was intended to impact Aria more than other characters, encouraging Aria players to switch bodies more often. This is a playstyle Aria was designed for, but we simply are not seeing out of successful Aria players. This adjustment may be a difficult one, but we feel strongly that Aria has a very large amount of untapped potential in keeping all three bodies alive for more of the match, in more frequent switching, and in more direct “counterpicking” by playing the bodies in different orders. Experiment, learn, and give this one a little time.]

Arbiter

  • Reduced Lv1 Damage Ender damage by 66%
  • Reduced Lv2 Damage Ender damage by 40% [Arbiter’s Damage Ender was hitting unusually hard, especially for his playstyle.]
  • Shadow Overhead Slash is now -1 on block (was +3)
  • Shadow Lunge Slash is now +2 on block (was +6)
  • Light Overhead Slash is now -2 (was 0)
  • Medium Overhead Slash floats in the air a bit longer, hits on frame 32 (was 28) and is 0 on block (was +2)
  • Heavy Overhead Slash floats in the air longer, hits on frame 37 (was 32) and is +2 on block (was +3) [Arbiter is meant to be a zoning character with limited rushdown capabilities when supported by Sticky Grenades. These frame data changes will make him easier to deal with on the attack and hopefully encourage a bit more thoughtful play.]
  • Grenade respawn timer increased to 18 seconds (was 15) [Arbiter still seemed like he was never without Grenades. This final tweak to the regen speed should make their use a little more thoughtful.]

Mira

  • Reduced PD inflicted by Vampire Mist by 30% (This pairs with the breaker/PD change)

General RAAM

  • Reduced PD inflicted by Kryll Storm by 30% (This pairs with the breaker/PD change)
  • Fixed a bug causing Kryll Rush, Shadow Kryll Rush, and Shadow Emergence to fan the flames as if they were Punch moves.
  • Fixed a bug causing the Kryll Shield animation to get stuck during Instinct if cursed by Kan-Ra.
  • Fixed a bug causing reversal special moves to not be possible after RAAM’s LK Flipouts.

Eyedol

  • Fixed a bug that could cause Shadow Meteors to keep falling after performing a counter breaker.
  • Fixed a bug causing the Lv1 version of the Crushing Destroyer Ender to cause a hard knockdown.
  • Fixed a bug causing shadow stomp to deal no chip damage

No Changes

  • Sabrewulf
  • Thunder
  • Sadira
  • Maya
  • Riptor
  • Aganos
  • Hisako
  • Shadow Jago
  • Kim Wu
  • Tusk
  • Rash
  • Gargos

Patch 3.7: The Shin Hisako Patch - March 14, 2017 (discussion)

Shadow Lords

  • 4 new Story Missions for Tusk
  • Kilgore added to Mimic pool
  • Increased chances for getting Dossiers
  • Fixed the crash that occurred if you had more than 32 friends in Shadow Lords leaderboards
  • Fixed an issue that allowed Aria to cancel her instinct mode while wearing the Mask of the Ancients (Instinct Always On)
  • Fixed a bug where the Crimson Vampire Bat and Crimson Ram were dealing 15% damage instead of 115% damage.

Overall System Changes

  • Fixed a bug where it was possible to trigger a timed lockout on the opponent during a shadow linker when they correctly timed a break attempt.
  • Fixed a bug where Shadow Enders could become counter breakable if the opponent recovered from a previous hit.
  • Shin Hisako added as a playable character.

Jago

  • Jago is a powerful character who doesn’t really struggle at any range or with any matchup. He has the game’s most powerful set of defensive tools, and he has a very potent offense, as well. The team wanted to maintain his defensive specialty, but slightly weaken his up close offense, and also make it more difficult for Jago to close in on his opponents. We still fully expect Jago to be a top 5 character after the changes below. They may seem dramatic, but we feel it is for the best for the overall game.
  • Light Windkick is now -4 on block (was -2).
  • Medium Windkick is now -6 on block (was -3)
  • Heavy Windkick is now -11 on block (was -7) [Jago already has Laser Sword if he wants to maintain frame advantage close to his opponent. Making Windkick punishable is a big change for Jago, and it will require that Jago players approach opponents more thoughtfully than just throwing out medium or heavy windkicks.]
  • Double Roundhouse is now +2 on block (was +3) [This move is still extremely good, but if you choose not to cancel it, Jago gets away with ever so slightly less after.]
  • Neck Cutter now hits on frame 22 (was 19) and has a slight range reduction [This move is a primary reason why Jago’s offense is so scary. Not only is it incredibly difficult to react to, but the range is spectacular and Jago can simple cancel it into other things. While a lot of that will still be true, the speed and range reductions will make it a bit less scary, and because Windkicks are now punishable on block, Jago players will have to either get closer and cancel into laser sword or hit confirm another way.]
  • Endokuken damage reduced by 20% [This will lower Jago’s life swing during instinct and his 1-chance damage a little.]
  • Big Endokuken damage reduced by 20%
  • Shadow Windkick is now -1 on block (was +1) [This probably won’t matter much because Jago still has the threat of his Tiger’s Fury DP, but he may have to use it more often in this situation now]
  • Fixed a bug causing instinct endokukens to not fan cinder’s flames. [Jago already gives Cinder a hard time, but this fix should help a lot if your strategy as Cinder was to burnout punches]
  • Fixed a bug where Jago’s combo breaker would become vulnerable during the landing portion of its recovery.

Glacius

  • Ice Lance is now -4 (was -8) [Because of Shatter becoming a true projectile in S3, Glacius was left with nothing to cancel Lance into in some matchups that wasn’t punishable. His only choice was to use Cold Shoulder, also punishable, and move to an uncomfortable range. This change will allow Glacius to use Lance as a poke without canceling it in nearly every matchup and will make his zoning much more potent.]
  • Crouching HK is now -5 (was -11)
  • Standing HP is now -4 (was -7)
  • Standing HK is now -5 (was -8) [In reviewing Glacius frame data, compared to his playstyle, his close range moves were simply far more negative than they needed to be. These changes will help a Glacius who wants to use these great normals without canceling them more often.]
  • Heavy Puddle Punch inflicts 2 less frames of blockstun (-20, was -18) so that canceling it into Shadow Hail behaves like the LT and MED versions. [This is no longer a true blockstring on standing opponents. Anyone with the meter to blow through a projectile will be able to punish this from now on. Glacius gained better keepaway thanks to the Lance change above, so this change makes his true reversal carry more risk, even when canceled into Shadow Hail.]
  • Fixed a bug causing the 5th hit of Shadow Cold Shoulder (Opener Version) to do less damage than intended. [The change from last patch that tried to even these damage values out is now actually working as intended.]

Thunder

  • Fixed an issue preventing Thunder from canceling into an Ultra off a max distance Ankle Slicer
  • Fixing a bug that caused Thunder to scoot forward when attempting a manual after a Shadow Call of Earth.

Orchid

  • Adjusted Flik Flak so that in juggles you cannot use this move back to back without inserting manuals between. [Juggles here should feel more like Sabrewulf’s paths now and deal a bit less damage overall, as the player will need to use manuals instead of just repeated specials.]
  • Lowered Opener Ichi Ni San damage by 5%
  • Raised Opener FlikFlak damage by 10%
  • Raised Opener Slide Kick damage by 25% [Players were correct in pointing out that our change last time didn’t quite go far enough. With this change, you’ll definitely see better damage when opening with more risky specials than Ichi Ni San.]
  • Fixed a bug where Gargos would not fall out of Orchid’s air throw properly.

Spinal

  • The startup of Shadow Boneshaker is now projectile immune. [For some reason, he was not projectile immune right away, forcing players to use the Skull version of Heavy Boneshaker for 1st frame projectile invulnerability.]
  • Shadow Boneshaker now loses its projectile invulnerability after its active frames have ended. [This move used to be projectile immune until it was completely over, meaning that if you tried to punish with a projectile it would go right through. A common case here was a shadow counter from Kilgore.]
  • Added the missing hitboxes to the startup of the linker version of Shadow Boneshaker.
  • Fixed a bug where j.MK would cause a ground bounce against opponents performing attacks that cause wall bounces.

Fulgore

  • Can no longer pip cancel Eye lasers into Plasma Bolts [Upon review, we felt that this ability simply made his zoning too strong, and that when used with his new instinct, lead to unwanted high damage 1 chance break combos.]
  • Fixed a bug causing Fulgore’s spin speed to max out when activating instinct despite us trying to remove that last patch. [The last patch said this would happen, but it didn’t, and it’s still causing Fulgore to get more meter than we expected internally.]
  • Fixed a bug where Fulgore’s combo breaker would become vulnerable during the landing portion of its recovery.
  • Fixed a bug where it was not possible to Shadow Counter with LK+MP.
  • Fixed a bug where the Punishment message would not show up during the Air Shadow Eye Laser’s landing sequence.
  • Fixed a bug where the time out win animation would finish too early.

TJ Combo

  • Fixed a bug where Powerline could be instinct canceled before hit.
  • Fixed a bug where TJ Combo would slide larger opponents across the stage during his Ultra combo activation.

Maya

  • Adjusted Tumble Kick so that in juggles you cannot use this move back to back without inserting manuals between. [Juggles here should feel more like Sabrewulf’s paths now and deal a bit less damage overall, as the player will need to use manuals instead of just repeated specials.]
  • Reduced opener Tumble Kick damage by 10% [This will make some of the difficult to break juggles deal a little less damage.]
  • Reduced Double Dagger damage by 33% [Unblockables will lead off with less damage up front]
  • Reduced damage dealt by Mantis in combos by 50% [Because Maya is the only character who can cash out juggles using a meterless move, Mantis will always remain very useful in her many different juggle paths. We feel this reduction in damage is necessary to keep the advantage a bit more in check, since Maya is turning out to be very strong.]
  • Significantly increased the damage dealt by the Dagger Assault Ender upfront, so that it deals just slightly less than the Exchange/Launcher ender. [Our final tweak to Dagger Assault should help Maya players not give up all the up-front ender damage when trying to explore the possibilities behind the various setups Dagger Assault allows. This ender still does less damage than others, but it will lessen the blow if your mixups do not succeed.]
  • Fixed a bug where the Punishment message would not show up during the Leap Kick Special landing sequence.
  • Fixed a bug where Maya’s throw would cause Gargos Minions to go flying.

Kan Ra

  • Decreased the amount of PD inflicted to himself from Sandsplosion by 50% (from 20 points to 10 points) [To be honest, we overlooked this when making the PD changes in 3.6. With PD healing slower, it was important to decrease the PD Kan-Ra puts on himself when using Sandsplosion.]
  • Fixed a bug causing heavy manuals to not be possible off his heavy linkers. [We aren’t sure how long this was around, but this will greatly increase his combo options.]
  • Reduced pushback on Swarm linkers. [This is so that more of his manuals will reach]
  • Fixed a bug where Kan-Ra would become stuck in a single pose during Whirl if going over a sand trap while already cursed by another Kan-Ra.
  • Fixed a bug where Kan-Ra could not special cancel normals while a Shadow Sand Trap attack is also hitting.
  • Fixed a bug where you could juggle after Clutch into medium Spike without a Swarm around by increasing the air pushback of standing and crouching kicks.
  • Fixed a bug where you could not combo backwards Clutch into Sand Spike against some characters.

Riptor

  • All Shoulder Charge enders are now 0 on hit midscreen (was +16 on lv1, and -13 on lv2-4) [You can no longer combo off of the Lv1 version midscreen, and the Lv2 and up version are no longer punishable on hit midscreen.]
  • Fixed a bug causing Riptor to bounce off thin air during Talon Rake if her opponent was in blockstun from Mortars or Carpet.
  • Fixed a bug where you could whiff a sweep with Riptor to prevent quick rises.
  • Fixed a bug where Riptor would be launched very high if thrown out of a certain frame of her Tail Flip by Arbiter’s Prophet’s Bane.
  • Fixed a bug where Riptor could perform auto doubles while whiffing jumping normals when Flame Mortars are hitting.
  • Now showing the Recapture property for Special Tail Flip in training mode.

Hisako

  • Fixed a bug causing Possession’s animation to slow down while cursed by Kan-Ra.
  • Now showing the Recapture and Stagger attack properties for Shadow Air OnRyoZan in training mode.

Aria

  • Fixed an input priority issue making her ultra not come out if you try a Shadow Linker Explosive Arc into ultra.
  • Fixed a bug where a combo only using the Shadow Explosive Arc Linker would make an ender occurring after it breakable.
  • Fixed a bug causing heavy Crescendo to not cause a hard knockdown on trades

Shadow Jago

  • Fixed a bug where Shadow Jago’s combo breaker would become vulnerable during the landing portion of its recovery.

Arbiter

  • Fixed a bug where auto doubles wouldn’t come out after medium or heavy Overhead Slash.
  • Fixed a bug where Arbiter’s back throw could be blocked if a character was thrown out of super freeze.

Mira

  • Fixed a bug causing Heavy Reaping Linker to consume less health if you held LP to trigger it than it did if you held MP. Both versions deal as much damage to Mira as the MP version now.

Gargos

  • Change the frame on which Gargos can cancel his dash early into a special move from Frame 18 to Frame 24 [This was an oversight by the team. All characters can cancel their dashes into special moves on the last few frames, but Gargos was able to do it much earlier than desired. Dash into Command Throw will be ever so slightly slower now, but still plenty fast enough to catch people who aren’t ready for it..]
  • Decreased opener Izuna Drop damage by 28%
  • Removed the hard knockdown from opener Izuna Drop [Gargos can get both high damage and a minion from his neutral command grab, and we feel the power of a minion makes this a bit too common of an occurrence. The places where Gargos can still get a minion are numerous, including his launcher ender, hard knockdown ender, forward or back throws, sweep, and in many situations by canceling blocked Portal Punches during zoning. Depending on the meter situation and your opponent’s character, safe minion summons may still be possible after neutral command grab as well.]
  • Fixed a bug where Gargos’ Air Madness Grabs would whiff if the opponent was attacking.
  • Fixed a bug where the player could not Stoneskin Explode during a hit if a minion was picked up.
  • Fixed a bug where the Minions could get stuck if Gargos is hit during his instinct and Explodes.
  • Fixed a bug where the throwee’s reaction animation would be flipped during the Air Madness grab.

General RAAM

  • Reduced the cost of Kryll Attack Cancel from 1 meter to a half meter. You’ll notice that when you have at least half a meter, just a few Kryll will appear around RAAM’s legs to let you know you have enough meter to perform a Kryll Attack Cancel. [Upon review, RAAM’s Kryll cancels give him similar freedom to other offensive characters, but at a very high cost. Reducing the cost will help him with some problem matchups, without pushing him too far ahead in ones that he already wins.]

Eyedol

  • Shoulder Ender is now 0 on block midscreen (Was -13, -8, -13, and -13) [These are no longer punishable on hit midscreen]
  • Fixed a bug where the standing proxy guard boxes were not as tall as the idle boxes making the character rapidly transition back and forth between the guarding to walking back animation.
  • Added missing collision on Eyedol head switch animations to prevent opponents from passing through.
  • Fixed a bug where Eyedol would use the jump properties of whatever body he was in when instinct activates instead of the Warrior settings.
  • Fixed a bug causing an animation pop at the end of Warrior’s forward throw

Kilgore

  • PD output reduced by ~60% [Kilgore was dealing far more one-change damage than we anticipated with single combos. These are still very worth doing and hit hard, but much less hard.]
  • Increased self damage when performing dodge in Overheat from 5 points to 24 points (so it deals the same damage to Kilgore as it does to his opponent) (note this is not effected by scaling, so at lower health values, Kilgore takes the full 24 pts but the opponent takes a bit less) [This move was incredibly abusive and annoying. This change hurts Kilgore so much that he’ll have to be really smart about when he chooses to throw away large chunks of health doing it.]
  • Fixed a bug causing Shadow Chaingun Dash to not fire exploding bullets in Instinct. [This is a pretty important part of his intended method of refreshing burns during a normal combo path and leads to monstrous damage.]
  • Fixing a bug that caused the 16 second Overheat mode to decrease in duration when firing chainguns
  • Reducing overheat time to 12 seconds [And because it is no longer modified in duration by any of your actions, it should be much easier to know when to expect it to end with a little practice.]
  • Made Sweep count as an opener so combos performed off of OTG hits become breakable as expected.
  • Fixed a bug where it was possible to not get Kilgore’s heavy linkers when holding the button for light and medium linkers.
  • Fixed an issue causing the chainguns to not spin during instinct.
  • Fixed a bug where Level 3 Metal Ball ender could cause opponents to fall out early.
  • Fixed a bug where the missiles could not be destroyed by projectile destroy boxes.
  • Fixed a bug where the forward HP command normal would cause a ground bounce when hitting a wall bounced opponent.
  • Fixed a bug where the Exploding Bullets would apply potential damage to Spinal if he absorbs them with Power Devour.
  • Reduced the chance that the standing HP bullets would whiff standing opponents.
  • Fixed a bug where the Level 1 Missile Pod ender was not using the correct animation.
  • Fixed a bug where players would get an ender instead of Shadow Chain Gun Dash Linker when inputting QCF+MP+HP from Shadow Chain Gun Dash linker or openers.
  • Fixed a bug where it was possible to Shadow Counter with 40% Shadow Meter.
  • Fixed a bug where players could not perform Shadow Counters with LK+MP.
  • Fixed a bug where Autodoubles would not come out after the training dummy performed Metal Ball after landing more than a certain distance from the opponent.
  • Made it possible to break the Shadow Metal Ball in opener/ender combos.
  • Fixed a bug where it was possible to get Heavy Auto Doubles blocked after performing an Overheated Heavy Chain Gun Dash.
  • Fixed a bug causing the throw to cause the opponent to blow out and spin in the air.
  • Fixed a bug that let you counter breaker on Shadow DP.
  • Fixed a bug where the medium and heavy Metal Ball specials would not land when expected while cursed by Kan-Ra.
  • Fixed a bug where a linker could be performed after a Shadow Linker Chain Gun Dash.
  • Missiles now auto destroy if not active during a match, preventing them from hitting between rounds
  • Fixed a bug where heavy autodoubles could drop when cursed by Kan-Ra following a Shadow Metal Ball ender.
  • Fixed a bug in Combo Breaker training where the Medium Metal Ball opener would come out when Heavy was expected.
  • Fixed a bug where the time out win animation would finish too early.
  • Fixed a bug where Kilgore would not end combos with the Shadow Uppercut in Combo Breaker Training.
  • Fixed a bug where the projectiles during the Ultra could cause the opponent to be blown out.
  • Removed the Shadow Metal Ball Ender from combo breaker training since it wasn’t possible to combo into it from an opener, becoming breakable.

Patch 3.8: The Eagle Patch - June 27, 2017 (discussion)

System Changes

  • Fixed an issue preventing several characters from cancelling normals into specials from too far away, which was most noticeable when hitting the outstretched limbs of opponents. These cancels will still not be possible from these ranges when striking armor.
  • Eagle was added as a playable character.

Jago

  • Crouching MK is now -2 on block (was +1)
  • Crouching LK is now -1 on block (was +1)
  • (During a frame data review, the team decided that these two moves were too strong to carry advantage on block when paired with the rest of the character’s toolkit.)

Sabrewulf

  • Fixed a bug preventing Riptor Flame Carpets from hitting Sabrewulf when landing from Leaping Slash, despite the hitboxes clearly touching.

Glacius

  • Fixed a bug where a Shadow Hail following a normal canceled into a Shadow Hail would not become breakable.

Thunder

  • Hornbreaker no longer deals chip damage, and its counterhit damage was reduced to normal levels (was 50% higher than most counterhits) (We aren’t sure why this move has dealt chip damage since Season 1 launch, but it isn’t something we feel Thunder needs, so it has been removed.)
  • (The team feels that Thunder is much harder to harass on wakeup than his offensive strength demands, so the next few changes below are meant to making waking up as Thunder much more thoughtful. Keep in mind that Thunder has an Armored Shadow Counter to fall back on as well.)
  • Murder of Crows Forward Dash is now vulnerable to throws for its full duration
  • Light, Medium, and Heavy Sammamish are now vulnerable to throws for the first 8 frames
  • Light, Medium, and Heavy Ankle Slicer are now vulnerable to throws for the full duration of the move
  • Light, Medium, and Heavy Ankle Slicer are now vulnerable to lows for the first 2 frames before its low crush ability becomes active.
  • (Summary of the above; Thunder is now much more vulnerable to meaty throws and lows and will need to choose his options a bit more thoughtfully.)
  • Sammamish Followups have had their trade priority adjusted.
    • Surprise Knee trades as a Light Attack (was Special)
    • Dropkick trades as a Medium Attack (was Special)
    • Skyfall trades as a Heavy Attack (was Special)
    • (These moves needed to count as specials so that Spinal could absorb them. He will still be able to do so, but their trade priority has been downgraded to that of typical jumping attacks. This should make them much more reliable to anti air across the entire cast.)
  • Cancelling the landing of Skyfall into Murder of Crows dash is now only possible on Frame 7 of the landing. It used to be available on or after frame 7. There is still a nice buffer so that if you input it early, it will come out on frame 7. (Thunder players will need to commit to the dash earlier now, giving them much less time to confirm hit or block and then decide.)
  • Cancelling Murder of Crows Dash Forward and Dash Back into special moves is now an Instinct trait. If you use a Murder of Crows Dash outside of instinct mode (with the Call of Sky buff)
    • MoC Forward Dash can be cancelled into a special on frame 20, the same frame as his non buffed dash. (Was 15)
    • MoC Back Dash cannot be cancelled into a special until recovery is completed, the same as his non buffed backdash.
    • Nothing has changed about the special cancel windows during Instinct mode.
    • (Being able to access his instinct outside of instinct is pretty powerful, but we really feel like Thunder players need this to navigate some of the zoning in the game (especially after lowering the priority of his Sammamish followups). We decided to, instead, remove his ability to cancel the dashes into specials when outside of instinct, making the dash a bit more about positioning or correcting mistakes than it is about creating an opening.)
  • Fixing a bug that could cause his lv4 triplax ender to drop.
  • Lowered lower body vulnerable box on the landing from Sammamish so that Riptor Flame Carpet could hit.

Fulgore

  • Can no longer pip cancel if the opponent is performing a shadow counter (We’ve all know this ability was too strong, but we didn’t want to adjust the entire pip cancel system just to make this behavior less common. Without getting super technical, the team didn’t really have a way to prevent this that didn’t break other parts of the character until recently, so we’ve finally made it so that you cannot use pip cancels to stop Shadow Counters. Pip cancels behave normally in all other situations.)
  • Medium Laser is now -3 on block (was 0), +2 on hit (was +5) and has 3 additional frames of recovery on whiff (A two hitting low that left Fulgore at a great range at 0 was a bit too good for one of the game’s best zoners.)
  • Crouching MK is now -2 on block (was 0)
  • Crouching LK is now -1 on block (was +1)
  • (During a frame data review, the team decided that these two moves were too strong to carry advantage on block when paired with the rest of the character’s toolkit.)
  • Lv2 charge of all strengths of Blade Charge inflict 1 less frames of blockstun
  • Lv3 (max) charge of all strengths of Blade Charge inflict 2 less frames of blockstun
  • (A little more frame data review convinced us to reduce the advantage on charged up Blade Charges just a bit. The move remains very high priority and intimidating.)
  • Medium Cyber Uppercut is now lower body vulnerable on frame 1, and upperbody vulnerable on frame 5 (Was fully invulnerable until frame 8)
  • Heavy Cyber Uppercut is now lower body vulnerable on frame 1, and upperbody vulnerable on frame 3 (Was fully invulnerable until frame 8)
  • (Upon review, the team wanted Fulgore to have to use his single-hit uppercut for invulnerability, and felt that having full invulnerability on the multi-hit versions was just too strong in matchups against Armored characters. If you attack low, Fulgore will now have to use a light uppercut. Medium and Heavy versions retain upperbody invulnerability, though for a shorter time, and still make great anti air attacks.)
  • Teleports start playing their invisibility VFX 4 frames sooner, causing them to end 4 frames sooner (We’ve heard your requests to make his teleport more visible, but this is the best we could do with the resources available to us at the time. It won’t make a world of difference, but it is something.)
  • Fixed a bug preventing charged blade dash from being breakable after an opener or normal because it counted as part of the previous move.

TJ Combo

  • Fixed an issue preventing his Punching Bag moves from becoming breakable if the first hit whiffed.
  • Fixing a bug causing his Opener Shadow Flying Knee to count as part of the previous move, making followups unbreakable.
  • Fixed a bug preventing TJ from being able to block low on the 1st frame after activating Instinct.
  • Fixed a bug preventing TJ from being able to exit Backstep early with low block, even though he could with high block.

Maya

  • Fixing a bug causing her backdash to have 4 additional frames of invulnerability.

Kan Ra

  • Fixed a bug preventing Kan-Ra from canceling normals into specials against armored opponents.
  • Fixed a bug preventing Kan-Ra from canceling crouching HK into specials.

Aganos

  • Making first hit of shadow counter bigger to avoid situations where pushboxes keep it from hitting.
  • Fixed a bug preventing Natural Disaster from triggering its 2nd hit on counter hit.
  • Fixed an issue where far HK could still wall splat during combos, breaking any ender you cancel into.

Hisako

  • Fixed a bug where catching low attacks with the instinct mode catch counter would result in performing the high catch counter attack, which would whiff some lows attacks.
  • Fixed an issue causing her jump arc to change permanently after performing a wall jump.

Aria

  • Fixed a bug preventing you from doing another Shadow Explosive Arc linker after a Shadow Explosive Arc linker.

Shadow Jago

  • Dark Reckoning (Overhead) is now -2 on block (was -3). (This move can no longer be punished by 3-frame moves, making it safer to throw out during your offense.)

Kim Wu

  • Fixing a bug causing her Opener Shadow Dragon Kick to count as part of the previous move, making followups unbreakable.

Tusk

  • Reduced the height of the Air and Air Shadow Skull Splitter explosions hitboxes by 40%
  • Reduced the damage of the Air Skull Splitter explosions by 40%
  • (After the buffs, this move is overperforming for Tusk and letting him trivialize some of his harder situations. These changes will make getting hit by this less damaging, and making jumping over it to punish Tusk more reasonable.)

Rash

  • Shadow Big Bad Boot now has 6 frames of startup time (was 3 frames) (This move was simply too fast for its size. This change makes it so that most of the cast can now safe-jump Rash with a proper setup)
  • Crouching HK is now -6 on block (was -4)
  • Standing HK is now -3 on block (was -2)
  • Crouching HP is now -3 on block (was -2)
  • Standing MP is now 0 on block (was -5) and +1 on hit (was -4)
  • Standing HP is now +2 on block (was 0) and +6 on hit (was +2)
  • (Frame data review left Rash with a few important changes. Standing HK, Crouching HK, and Crouching HP are all a bit worse on block now. Standing MP and Standing HP are much more useful in blockstrings to compensate for the shorter range or hitting twice, and get some more advantage on hit as well. Standing HP can now link into some things it could not before.)

Arbiter

  • Crouching MK slight range increase (Increasing the range of Arbiter’s only low threat makes his overhead game that much more frightening.)
  • Crouching HP becomes active 1 frame earlier
  • Crouching HP head vulnerable box is slightly lower to the ground
  • Crouching HP arm vulnerable box now appears on frame 16 (was 10)
  • (These three changes improve his crouching HP anti air considerably)
  • Fixed a bug causing his standing HP to build tiny amounts of meter. It now builds meter like other single hit heavy buttons do. (This fix is huge for Arbiter, who uses his standing punch buttons to zone midscreen and can turn meter into health at any time.)
  • Fixed a bug where Arbiter’s counter breaker would whiff on many characters in the corner as player 2.
  • Fixed a bug where the Sticky Grenade could hit the opponent out of the command throw ender.

Mira

  • Fixing a bug causing her backdash to have 4 additional frames of invulnerability.
  • Fixed a bug causing Heavy Trephine Linker to consume less blood if done by holding Light Attack instead of Medium Attack. Both methods now remove the intended 20 health.

Gargos

  • Jumping HK has 5 additional frames of startup time.
  • The attack box on Jumping HK has been adjusted so that many character can crouch under it if they are closer to Gargos. The attack box at the farthest distance of the attack remains as tall as it was, however.
  • (This move is one of the reasons that, outside of being cornered, Gargos isn’t struggling at mid range as much as we’d like him to. Giving many characters the ability to crouch this move at these ranges greatly decreases Gargos’ ability to move his opponent backward, forcing him to move himself backward instead.)
  • Minions no longer deal chip damage when they attack or use special moves. Throwing a minion still causes chip damage. (This is meant to reduce frustration when waiting for opportunities to punish minions.)
  • Crouching MP is now +1 on block (was +3)
  • Pushback on hit and block of Crouching MP increased.
  • (During frame data review, the team decided that this move was way too good for Gargos’ to have with the rest of his toolkit. We’ve reduced the advantage and increased the pushback, leaving it still one of his best buttons, but not something you can just press 5 times in a row without thought.)
  • Ground Light Reckoning damage reduced 25%
  • Ground Medium Reckoning damage reduced 25%
  • All versions of Air Reckoning now deal the same amount of damage. That amount now matches the damage of Grounded Light Reckoning. This is a decrease of varying amounts on each version.
    • Air Light Reckoning damage decreased by 25%
    • Air Medium Reckoning damage decreased by 35%
    • Air Heavy Reckoning damage reduced 45%
    • (We’ve reduced the damage on every version of Reckoning other than Heavy to help reign in Gargos unbreakable damage using Stagger into Command Grab.)
  • Minion’s vulnerable box size increases when overlapping the opponent, making them much easier to hit with normals. (This change is huge. If a minion is standing overtop of your character, most of your attack buttons should hit them now. Experiment.)
  • Fixed a bug where Gargos would freeze for a moment if getting hit by a counter breaker while the fat minion was attacking.
  • Fixed a bug where Gargos would get stuck if counter hiiting the opponent using Air Medium Reckoning performed at a certain height.
  • Fixed a bug where characters would be too high off the ground after Gargos’s Izuna Drop was performed from Heavy Madness Grab.

General RAAM

  • Light Emergence is now lower body invulnerable on frame 4 (was frame 8)
  • Light Emergence now hits farther behind RAAM
  • (These changes are designed to give this move more use both as a low crush, and as an anti teleport move)

Eyedol

  • Fixed a bug causing the Warrior stance back throw to be untechable. (Yeah. This was bad. Sorry about that.)

Kilgore

  • Exhaust Ender now builds some meter for Kilgore, but less than the usual battery ender.
  • Fixed a bug causing Shadow Missiles to no longer knockdown.
  • Fixed a bug causing Level 1 Missiles ender to no longer knockdown.

Shin Hisako

  • Reduced Shin Air On Ryo Zan damage by ~25%
  • Now preventing Creepy Hands from grabbing someone if Shin Hisako is being flipped out.
  • Now destroying the spirit shot projectile if she is performing an ender to prevent it from making the ender drop.
  • Fixed a bug preventing counterhit properties from triggering on Shin Air On Ryo Zan, Awakened Soul, and Spirit Slice special moves.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed Shin Hisako to spawn creepy hands that never expire at the end of her Instinct Mode.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed her to attempt a counterbreaker during the startup of the Creepy Hands cutscene, breaking the stage boundaries.
  • Fixed a bug causing the 3rd hit of Light and Heavy rekka to do more damage than expected, and the 3rd hit of Medium rekka to do less than expected.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed her to counter break from the startup of creepy hands, which broke the stage boundaries.
  • Fixed a bug allowing Creepy Hands to grab Aria between rounds.
  • Fixed a bug preventing the Creepy Hands from being destroyed if their owner attempts a Counter Breaker.
  • Fixed a bug preventing Shadow Dash n Slash from working against cornered Aganos.
  • Fixed a bug causing standing MK to have no pushback.
  • Fixed an issue causing her jump arc to change permanently after performing a wall jump.
  • Fixed a bug causing Shadow Linker Shin ORZ to attack at the speed of Hisako’s version of the move instead of the sped up Shin Hisako version.
  • Fixed a bug causing Cinder’s burnouts to remain active after a combo breaker.

No Changes

  • Sadira
  • Orchid
  • Spinal
  • Riptor
  • Omen
  • Cinder

Patch 3.8.2: The Eagle Hotfix Patch - July 11, 2017 (discussion)

Eagle

  • Fixed an issue during online matches that would cause the game to sometimes crash if Eagle fired a maximum charge HP arrow.
  • Fixed an issue where hitting Eagle while he was charging an unblockable arrow would transfer the unblockable property to the next arrow fired.
  • Fixed Eagle's ultra on the command list to correctly read QCF + PPP (was DP + PPP).

Patch 3.9: Tune-Up Balance Patch - September 6, 2017 (discussion)

System Changes

  • Fixed an issue preventing Opener -> Instinct Cancel -> Ultra from working if the move you performed had a non-hitting “landing” (recovery) sequence your character is forced into immediately on hit, such as Jago Wind Kick.
  • Fixed an issue that caused damage from some throws to not reset the potential damage healing process as expected.
  • Fixed an issue that could cause a reset into an opener attack to sometimes have followup manuals be unbreakable.
  • Fixed an issue that could cause your gravity to get stuck at a lower value if your opponent was hit out of the early frames of a ground-to-air Counter Breaker attempt.

Thunder

  • Shortened the window for inputting an Ultimate after starting Thunder’s Ultra to avoid a situation in which the characters could become misaligned.

Sadira

  • [Sadira was a very strong character in both Season 1 and Season 2, and throughout Season 3 we tried to increase her fun factor without making her too overwhelming. While we are happy with where her fun factor ended up, we saw the need for her to hit just a bit harder in some key areas in order to help her compete with the current cast.]
  • Instinct Webs no longer gain a first hit damage bonus.
  • Instinct Web damage raised 500% (from 2 to 10)
  • Instinct Webs now deal 1 chip damage (was 0) [These three changes combine to give Sadira much higher damage from webs both upfront and in combos, without the upfront damage being overly high due to the first hit damage bonus.]
  • Web Cling (Damage) Ender damage increased by 25% [Sadira’s damage ender doesn’t hit much harder than her exchange ender, which gets her better setups, so we amped this one up a bit to make it more worth it]
  • Fixed a bug that let Sadira cancel early jump frames into auto doubles and linkers outside of instinct.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause Lv1 Blade Demon ender to drop in some situations.

Spinal

  • [Spinal is difficult to adjust because of how strong his momentum can be. We noticed that many of his bad matchups include strong air priority characters, so we wanted to give him some slightly better ways to handle characters at awkward air angles without buffing his ground game.]
  • Jumping LP hitbox extended to cover more space above Spinal.
  • Jumping MP range extended to reach farther away from Spinal.
  • Jumping MP is now active for 2 additional frames.

Fulgore

  • [Fulgore has been pretty difficult to balance. We’ve adjusted his rushdown, his zoning, and his instinct during Season 3 and he is still an extremely powerful character, which shows how tricky it is to find the sweet spot for him. Now that the dust has settled a bit, the team feels confident that Fulgore now has the weaknesses we intended him to have, but on the journey to this spot, we went a little far in a few areas. These buffs will not send Fulgore over the top again, but should help with some small quality of life aspects of his game.]
  • Raised Energy Bolt damage by 42% (from 7 to 10) [This gives him more zoning damage and more damage on his Energy Bolt into Teleport mixups]
  • Raised Light Cyber Uppercut damage 33% (from 15 to 20)
  • Raised Medium Cyber Uppercut damage 16% (from 12 to 14) [Usually, you’d expect the heavy version of a move to do the most damage, but in this case we wanted the reverse. The benefit of the light uppercut is the highest damage and most invulnerability, while the benefit of the heavy version is more potential damage left behind and multiple hits.]
  • Light and Medium Eye Lasers can now be Pip Cancelled into Energy Bolts. Heavy Eye Beam still cannot be. [This is a big buff to pip cancels and these versions of Eye Lasers, and as a result, his instinct mode as well.]
  • The minimum reactor spin speed has been increased slightly. It now takes about 10 seconds at the lowest speed to build one pip, instead of 12.5 seconds. [Fulgore’s weakness should be the odd way in which he gains meter. The old instinct mode gave him so much free meter per game that this weakness didn’t matter. Now that we have things functioning the way we want, we feel his default ‘slow’ meter gain is just a hair too low. Over the course of an average match, this should result in 3 to 5 more pips than you used to get.]

TJ Combo

  • Reduced the combo breaker window on a successful Tremor by 4 frames. [The tremor moves have one of the largest breakable windows in the game, even after this change. This just tightens it up a bit.]

Kan Ra

  • [Another character with a very complex moveset that has proven difficult to balance, especially due to how much he benefits from training mode experimentation. After watching Season 3 Kan-Ra players, we decided that he struggled just a bit too much up close, now that getting closer to him is slightly easier than it was in Season 2. We adjusted some frame data on his close normals that should allow him to fight back without having to always commit to a negative on block special move.]
  • Standing LK is now 0 on block (was -2) [This is a big change for Kan-Ra, as it lets him use his fastest normal to try to push enemies away from him with much less risk.]
  • Standing LP is now +1 on block (was -2)
  • Standing LP is now +1 on hit (was -1)
  • Fixed a bug causing standing LP to deal less hitstun on counterhit than normal
  • Crouching LP is now -1 on block (was -4)
  • Crouching LP is now 0 on hit (was -2)
  • Crouching MK is now -2 on block (was 0)
  • DownBack + MP range increased [We did a review of the rest of his frame data and attack boxes after changing standing LK to be 0 on block to make sure the rest of them made sense around that change. Slower normals are better on block or have increased range to compensate so you aren’t just pressing standing LK and nothing else.]
  • Wall Splat enders are now +23 (was +13), allowing new combos and setups, and making it easier to land them consistently on different sized opponents. [Some characters could not be thrown before recovering from a Wall Splat, so adding more time fixed this issue and made Kan-Ra’s options off of a Splat more versatile.]

Riptor

  • Fixed an issue preventing Riptor from using her run forward or back to avoid Shin Hisako’s Creepy Hands.
  • Fixed a bug causing the final hit of Shoulder Charge Enders levels 2-4 to add 10 KV.
  • Fixed a bug causing close standing HP to deal less hitstun on counterhit.
  • Fixed a bug that caused crouching HP to cause a hard knockdown on juggled opponents.

Aganos

  • Fixed an issue that could cause Payload and Ruin enders to fail if a wall already existed at just the right (wrong?) ranges.

Hisako

  • Increased the range from which Hisako can trigger an Ultra. [Hisako’s ultra would not trigger off some of her far manuals, so we increased the range at which this is allowed to happen.]

Cinder

  • Reduced the PD output of Inferno on block by 20%
  • Reduced the PD output of Shadow Inferno on block by 22% [Cinder has made great use of the PD/Breaker changes, and is in a good place overall. We wanted to reduce the PD he generates from his Inferno moves a bit to reduce the pressure on his opponents slightly, but we’ve left the PD on his Burnouts the same. He still won’t have any trouble generating Level 4 enders.]
  • Increased the range at which Cinder can trigger his Ultra.
  • Fixed an issue that could cause his throw to whiff its final hit against Mira in the corner.
  • Fixed an issue that could cause manuals after Pyrobomb explosions in some situations to be unbreakable.

Aria

  • [Most players agree that Aria is incredibly strong in Season 3, but because she promotes so many interesting decisions on offense and defense, and because she can often be quite fragile, we didn’t want to adjust any of her most interesting mechanics. In this patch we touched on just one of the moves that seems to cause many characters trouble, while keeping the rest of her very strong gameplan intact.]
  • Reduced the range of Jumping MK
  • Reduced how far back Jumping MK pushes Aria
  • Reduced the blockstun from Jumping MK by 8 frames [This move is a key reason why Aria, in any body, can be extremely frustrating to fight against for a large part of the roster. This change weakens the move just enough that Aria players will need to be more thoughtful about when and where to use it.]
  • Both medium auto doubles now last 6 frames longer, making them more similar to the speeds of other medium auto doubles. [People complained for a long time about Aria’s Medium Punch Auto Double being very fast, but her Medium Kick one was just as fast. We’ve slowed them both slightly.]

Shadow Jago

  • Dark Fury (Damage) ender damage increased by 20% [The damage on this ender wasn’t much higher than his hard knockdown and exchange enders, which both give him better setups. We’ve increased the damage to make this ender more worth it.]

Rash

  • Fixed a bug causing his Exchange Ender to do the damage of his Splat Ender, and his Splat Ender to do the damage of his Exchange Ender. [Rash’s wall splat pressure is very strong, so this bug fix which slightly lowers wall splat damage to its intended value will help players survive the onslaught just a little bit longer.]
  • Fixed a bug that could cause the Lv2 and Lv3 Big Bad Boot enders to drop when cancelled late after a light auto double.
  • Fixed a bug causing auto doubles to fan the flames incorrectly when burned out by Cinder.
  • Fixed an issue causing Big Bad Boot to deal less damage than expected on counterhit.

Arbiter

  • Fixed a bug that caused Arbiter to get cursed when parrying certain status-effect inducing attacks, and could let Jago heal with Instinct Endokukens even if Arbiter parried them.
  • Fixed a bug that caused the whiff version of Shadow Mercy’s Demise to not spawn its attack box. You may now be able to catch someone trying to jump over this now.
  • Extended the duration of the force block box on Medium, Heavy, and Shadow Truth Seeker to fix an issue preventing the Random Block option in training from being able to block this move.
  • Fixed an issue causing Jumping F+HK to push back farther on counterhit than expected, and deal less hitstun than expected.
  • Fixed an issue causing the counterhit versions of all Gunbutt attacks to deal less damage than expected.
  • Fixed an issue preventing Arbiter from Shadow Countering projectiles while shielded.

Mira

  • [Our main change to Mira this patch has been to slightly adjust her control over the neutral by giving her slightly less access to meter, making decisions on spending meter more important, and making perhaps the best shadow move in the game work in slightly fewer situations. Overall, we are happy with how the rest of Mira’s strong gameplan is meshing with her crucial blood health weakness.]
  • Reduced the meter gain from Bat projectiles by 23% [It used to take 7 full sets of bats to build a meter, and now it takes 9. Overall this is a pretty minor change, as Mira can simply go in on her opponent to gain meter as needed.]
  • Shadow Bats now starts up in 16 frames (was 12) [This is a bigger change for Mira. Shadow Bats are not a true block string from all the same attacks as before; notably, canceling from medium normals and both medium and heavy Reaping will leave a gap to launch a projectile invincible attack, while light Trephine and all heavy normals work as before. Mira has to take slightly more risks to ensure Shadow Bats will be blocked so she can mix up behind their cover.]
  • Standing HP can be cancelled on hit/block 1 frame sooner. [We also moved the cancel window up so it would be a true block string into the new slowed down version of Shadow Bat]
  • Increased the range at which Mira can trigger her Ultra.

Gargos

  • Izzik’s special now does 1 chip per hit (was 0)
  • Dretch’s special now does 3 chip damage (was 0) [We reduced a lot on Gargos over the last few updates. We felt that the minion special moves doing chip was a good reward for Gargos protecting his minions for a while, which is now harder due to their expanded vulnerable boxes, so we put this back the way it was.]
  • Medium Reckoning damage increased by 20% [Adding just a little more reward back to the anti air version of Reckoning will reward Gargos players who have great defense.]

Shin Hisako

  • Spirit Orbs will now be destroyed if they go off screen for more than one second. [Shin Hisako’s ability to run away was very powerful against a lot of the cast. This change ensures that when she teleports behind you, it must be pretty quickly after the orb goes off screen, and the farthest she can appear behind you is the screen edge.]
  • Fixed a bug allowing Shin Hisako to cancel out of her Linker Shadow Shin On Ryo Zan after the fourth hit, causing the final fifth hit to not come out.
  • Increased the range from which Shin Hisako can trigger an Ultra. [Hisako’s ultra would not trigger off some of her far manuals, so we increased the range at which this is allowed to happen.]

Eagle

  • All air arrow shots will no longer auto correct to face the opponent.
  • Hitstun on Lv2 and Special arrows reduced by 2 frames. [This removes his corner Arrow Rain loop.]
  • Any bird attacks in progress will be cancelled immediately if you input a Counter Breaker or a Shadow Counter. [This removes safe Counter Breaker attempts]
  • You can no longer command the bird while attempting a Shadow Counter. [This, along with the above change, removes safe Shadow Counter attempts]
  • You can no longer command the bird while teching a throw or having your throw teched. [This removes throw tech punishes]
  • Added 4 more frames of hitstun on Wingspan’s Surprise Knee followup, making comboing off of this on a grounded opponent more consistent.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause the charged up arrow state to get stuck and carry over to Rain Shot, Scatter Shot, or Throws.
  • Fixed a bug causing Air DF+HP Arrow to mess up Eagle’s air momentum if he jumps over his opponent.
  • Fixed an issue causing Cinder’s flames to fan any time Eagle aimed his bow or released an arrow, instead of just on the initial button press.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause Bird attacks to not count as openers.
  • Fixed a bug causing his Shadow Counter to hit on frame 10 instead of the intended frame 8.
  • Fixed a bug that could cause Eagle to dash away from his opponent using a broken animation when attempting a Counter Breaker from certain frames of his Wingspan Linker.
  • Fixed a bug causing the bird to go farther away from Eagle than expected when performing Sonic Screech with his back to the corner.
  • Fixed an issue that could cause a force block hitbox to get stuck on the bird when performing the QCB+3K command to trigger Bird Magnet.
  • Fixed an issue preventing the player from kara canceling into Shadow Scatter and Shadow Rain when the quiver was empty.
  • Fixed an issue preventing kara cancels into Shadow Rain from working.
  • Fixed an issue preventing kara cancels into Shadow Bird Magnet from working.
  • Fixed a bug causing Sonic Screech to build 3x as much meter as expected.
  • Fixed a bug that allowed Eagle to perform a linker after a Shadow Slide linker.
  • Fixed a bug that caused arrow projectiles to inherit to hit properties (stagger, sweep, etc) of Eagle’s whiffed attacks.
  • Fixed a bug preventing Skyfall from blowing out a combo, which allowed a between rounds infinite loop.
  • Fixed a bug that could crash the game if Kim Wu reflected Scatter Shot.
  • Fixed a bug that caused Arrow Fetch and Bird Magnet to remove Aganos Chunks on block.

No Changes

  • Jago
  • Sabrewulf
  • Glacius
  • Orchid
  • Maya
  • Omen
  • Kim Wu
  • Tusk
  • General RAAM
  • Eyedol
  • Kilgore

Patch 3.9.2: Balance Patch Hotfix - December 1, 2017 (discussion)

General

  • Xbox One X performance fix
  • Shadow Lords Dossier drop adjustments per fan feedback:
    • Character Dossiers now drop 100% for at least one of the enemies you defeat each fight (or deploy)
    • Improved drop rate of world items
    • Improved drop rate of guardian dossiers

Rash

  • Fixed Rash doing Ultra’s from Shadow Horns vs blocking opponents!

Patch 3.9.3: Balance Patch Hotfix #2 - March 7, 2018 (discussion)

Xbox One X

  • Xbox One X 4K performance optimization.

Steam

  • Fixed crash bug in Shadow Lab Challenge Leaderboards and when searching for Shadows to fight in Shadow Survival & Shadow Lords.
  • Fixed Shadow Lab Leaderboards so they display the stats for Shadows win/losses correctly.

All Platforms

  • Fixed Hisako bug that allowed her to perform an Ultra on Block or Whiff when opponent was in HP Danger Zone.
  • Shadow Lords Limited Time promotional packs (Crimson Guardian and other Rare Guardians) unified on all platforms to be offered the 1st and 3rd week of every month.

Patch 3.9.13: Balance Patch Hotfix #3 - August 16, 2018 (discussion)

Sabrewulf

  • Combo Breaker advantage time for Sabrewulf is 0 (was -7).

Rash

  • Combo Breaker advantage time for Rash is +1 (was +9).

Shadow Lords

  • Fixed issue where the Relic Hunt quest chain would not spawn again if the player lost to Gargos (or started a new play though) before completing it.
  • Pack system has been changed to offer an individual pack for every Guardian and rarity tier (Common, Rare, Epic, Killer and Crimson) for a total of 50 packs.
  • Health and Loot packs now always have the same predefined items, which are listed in their description.
  • All Common-Killer Guardian tier packs are now in offered on a daily rotation schedule.
  • A base set of packs are available every day which include Healing, Loot and a 3 lower tier Guardians.
  • Crimson Guardians are now offered on a weekly rotation schedule.
  • All Guardian’s Common-Epic tiers acquired from packs are now always ‘perfect’ (best version/stats of that tier). Killer and Crimson were already always ‘perfect’. The exception is the Common Ram given to the player during the tutorial to the mode (only available first time playing Shadow Lords). This will not be ‘perfect’.
  • Adjusted the Astral Gem and KI Gold costs and Astral Energy included to reflect the new individual pack contents. Reduced costs on some existing packs.
  • Increased the Transmute Astral Gem values given for of all Guardians dramatically.
  • Decreased the Transmute Astral Energy values given for all of the Guardians. For every buff (gems) there is a nerf!
  • Increased the amount of Astral Energy needed to feed Killer and Crimson Guardians (aka cost per use).

KI Store

  • Cost for XP Boosters reduced by 50%
  • On Steam: Fixed the error preventing purchase of KI Gold

'Cause mama, mama I'm comin' home

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