Suggestion for GF balance

[Elegy]

GF = Gentle Fist (if it wasn't made clear)

The community has expressed frustration on fighting the GF mastery multiple times and I'm sure this isn't the first (or the last) post about this. This is however a suggestion offered more as a 'quick fix' that would require minimal work, rather than a complete rework of the class. I'll explain in my opinion why this mastery is so frustrating and unbalanced.

The combo below is the one I'm using as reference as it's where the frustration lies:

GF combo: Flicker -> Palm Bottom -> Mountain Crusher -> Any follow-up

Any flicker combo in the game has one of the two characteristics:

Undodgeable: Jutsu combos like Flicker -> Windclaw for example (before you disagree, yes this can be hard punished, ask any wind user who has fought me)
Unpunishable: Jutsu combos like Flicker -> Fan 3 tile tornado, or Flicker -> poison scalpel

The gentle fist combo mentioned above has both of these characteristics. It is both undodgeable AND unpunishable and is the only combo in the game to have these characteristics. While you may argue 'this is why GF is special' the scaling of damage on the combo with both these characteristics offers an advantage no other mastery even comes close to, which is why it's considered so unbalanced.

 

Proposed solution:

Remove just one of these characteristics (not completely, you would still keep the undodgeable combo, just reduce the damage on it). My suggestion to do this is by changing the hitbox of the Palm bottom skill. Currently Palm bottom has the following hitbox:

The reason this is undodgeable with flicker (as apposed to something like flicker -> tornado) is due to the hitbox of tiles 1 and 5. My suggested change of the hitbox is as follows:

 

Conclusion

I want this to be a fix that is agreeable with current GF players. The playstyle would still be the same, it would just add more opportunities to play the class well as skilled players would still be able to time their flicker to land more damage on their combo, and the overall combo after flicker would still be undodgable, just do less damage. This would open up opportunities for counterplay through good movement and also add for more opportunities to showcase skill on the class.

As this is a suggestion, please keep replies on topic.

 

 

[Lumy]

Tbh GF is meant to dominate 1v1s. A nerf like this would make people with higher ping suffer. If there is to be a nerf a buff should be implemented on other jutsus.

[Autumn Ronin]

The GF combo also has one more characteristic, which is that you can't sub it either, mountain crusher is Seimistic Dash in steroids, it doesn't self stun which allows you to combo right after, palm bottom takes your sub and mountain crusher places you infront of your enemy, the rest is just smashing buttons for a combo, subbing the GF combo is just not possibe. 

[Nik]

This must happen. You're a fool if you think otherwise.

[Exodia]

@Ueda @Erox

[FreezeHud]

Wm med is more toxic than gf 

[Elegy]

3 minutes ago, FreezeHud said:

Wm med is more toxic than gf 

You are free to make a suggestion on how to balance wm med, but not on this post please, I would like it if this post stays on topic

[Sound]

2 hours ago, FreezeHud said:

Wm med is more toxic than gf 

Lemme have some of what ure smokin homie 

 

Lmao seriously tho wm med is strong, i fought it over 100 times in spars n i think it's safe to say it's nowhere bas toxic as gf especially gf/wm 

Gf just has that unavoidable combo every 18 secs or so that u can't do anything about, its like you're fighting on a timer, they will buse the combo, run around, repeat it has no counter at all it's nothing compared to wm/med

[Elegy]

 

2 minutes ago, Lumy said:

Tbh GF is meant to dominate 1v1s. A nerf like this would make people with higher ping suffer. If there is to be a nerf a buff should be implemented on other jutsus.

Imo it would still dominate 1v1s because the combo is the only one to have an unpunishable (and undodgeable) homing that guarentees follow-up, this would just balance the class so that more skilled players are rewarded more damage for good timing, rather than every user being able to spam the jutsu on flicker cd

[Sukki]

3 hours ago, Insidious said:

You are free to make a suggestion on how to balance wm med, but not on this post please, I would like it if this post stays on topic

https://gyazo.com/69620f7609a54cc32a33fe930213c4ed
stop doing it at beginning before you call someone :joy: xD

[Ichika]

Good suggestion but nerfing GF has to lead to nerfing players having 20 str fan/pipe as elementals/int meds. I’m not bias so I know that having an elemental pipe can be pretty braindead, Ex: wind water pipe is better than solo GF but at the same time have Aoes and shit that makes it also better in team fights which is why I think if we strictly do this nerf right here it would be unfair, unless the nerf with the 20 str fan/pipe users happen as well.

[Esty]

Seems like a creative and interesting way to fix this issue, although it may not be enough. On a side note, the thing about GF is that it mainly affects 1v1 and low scale fights, there is plenty of other unbalanced jutsus, summons, weapons and org buffs that have the potential to unbalance fights in high scales, in my opinion this makes GF issue less prominent as other instances are able to cause havoc in scenarios that include way more players. 

[Elegy]

2 minutes ago, Esty said:

Seems like a creative and interesting way to fix this issue, although it may not be enough.

The only reason for this suggestion is to make GF more skillbased, the combo will largely stay the same for skilled players, It will just reward a better timed use of it more.
 

11 minutes ago, Ichika said:

here it would be unfair, unless the nerf with the 20 str fan/pipe users happen as well.

I 100% agree with you, make the post and I'll upvote it

[Anna Primal]

3 hours ago, Lumy said:

Tbh GF is meant to dominate 1v1s. A nerf like this would make people with higher ping suffer. If there is to be a nerf a buff should be implemented on other jutsus.

nerf ppl based on ping then  

[Anna Primal]

the issue with wm/medic it combos are punisable and dogeable but  the amouth of time that combo can be use in 1 min is beyond bad

[Elegy]

Just now, ana primal said:

the issue with wm/medic it combos are punisable and dogeable but  the amouth of time that combo can be use in 1 min is beyond bad

Please please please stay on topic. If you want to make a suggestion about wm med and discuss it, do it in a separate thread. This thread is for GF and the suggestion I proposed. 

[Anna Primal]

the issue is flicker combo rather then gf it self remove flicker combo and most masteries gt nerf well

[Elegy]

Just now, ana primal said:

the issue is flicker combo rather then gf it self remove flicker combo and most masteries gt nerf well

I disagree, and here's why.

All flicker combos do not posses both the characteristics of being undodgeable and unpunishable. Only one of the two. This is the only combo that has both those characteristics with an insanely high damage burst with better scaling than others.

[Anna Primal]

Just now, Insidious said:

Please please please stay on topic. If you want to make a suggestion about wm med and discuss it, do it in a separate thread. This thread is for GF and the suggestion I proposed. 

the issue was talking abotu gf being less to ic then wm/medic that was not true in my opinion gf is high hitting but after the combo the gf is simple fucked 300 damage combo is nothing if you can punish it sec after with a full combo.

[Elegy]

7 minutes ago, ana primal said:

the issue was talking abotu gf being less to ic then wm/medic that was not true in my opinion gf is high hitting but after the combo the gf is simple fucked 300 damage combo is nothing if you can punish it sec after with a full combo.

No, this thread is about the discussion for my suggestion. Nothing to do with wm med. Also GF combo you cannot punish, this is simply untrue. What you say about it having low damage after the combo may be true, but there are hardly any players who play pure GF (infact I can't even name any). The second mastery just fills the short 15 second downtime (not to mention since GF scales with strength, pretty much every GF player uses a sword when not combo'ing) and the combo is ready again.

I want to emphasise again that this suggestion will still leave the high damage and undodgeable combo, but only if you time it properly and use it correctly, otherwise the combo will simply do 1 jutsu less of damage, adding a skillcap and some counterplay for people fighting this.

[Anna Primal]

8 minutes ago, Insidious said:

No, this thread is about the discussion for my suggestion. Nothing to do with wm med. Also GF combo you cannot punish, this is simply untrue. What you say about it having low damage after the combo may be true, but there are hardly any players who play pure GF (infact I can't even name any). The second mastery just fills the short 15 second downtime (not to mention since GF scales with strength, pretty much every GF player uses a sword when not combo'ing) and the combo is ready again.

I want to emphasise again that this suggestion will still leave the high damage and undodgeable combo, but only if you time it properly and use it correctly, otherwise the combo will simply do 1 jutsu less of damage, adding a skillcap and some counterplay for people fighting this.

the issue is gf is useless after the combonerfing the combo in a slight way may risky the mastery. after a combo a gf if ez to kill.