Sigma

I don't think Zato's changes are as damaging as some people think. There are a couple of inaccuracies I think. The shadow regen time increase should only be after the gauge runs out or Eddie is hit, and the gauge lock I believe is for Overdrives (like using Executor for guage stalling) not all specials. Being able to hit the pools doesn't seem like it will change things as much as might be believed. Much of the time, the pool is going to be behind the opponent anyway. If you IB a drill, you're still not going to have much time to poke away the pool even if your hitbox reaches it. Even if you're able to, instead of instantly killing Eddie, you remove the pool and Eddie is summoned close instead of being out of the match like he would be if you predict a summon. It should mostly reduce the risk of dashing in from midscreen than reduce the effectiveness of Zato's pressure. It may even prevent unnecessary Eddie deaths in more scenarios. Hard to say how the command grab buffs will improve things or not. I notice Ogawa using it a little more recently, but typically only to finish a round, and possibly because he's just screwing around. Soooo, until we hear more, I think the end result is Zato is just a bit more unforgiving than he was. Seeing how it plays out in testing will be the real indicator. As a side note, the Blitz Shield buffs should actually be an indirect buff to characters without strong reversals of their own, which Zato should definitely benefit from in matchups vs Millia or I-No for example.

I'm not sure I get most of the test 3 changes. Basically... Overheads are still overhead? Is that what we're getting at here? :P

It's the reason his dash is slower.

It looks like the only choice outside of Arc changing something is for us to find something retarded to break the game with once again, since Carl isn't going to be a valid character to play normally as he is right now. :P I think now is a good time to form a contingency plan in case Carl remains the same. I'll be moving down the hat-awesomeness tier list, so it looks like Hazama is up.

Indeed. I had a nice full guard crush (from neutral) block string going, now it's all ruined thanks to a few of the changes. Carl's combo damage is going to be way underpowered as it is. Like Dan underpowered. Why does Carl need to blow up Nirvana just to match other characters' bnb combos?

I mean overcompensating in terms of nerfs. As for the projectile, it's good to have, but it seems to (along with the other changes) reduce emphasis on actually fighting while actively using nirvana, which is what they should have been trying to increase. I don't look forward to having people park her in the corner and just use the projectiles for links. Aren't any Japanese Carl players speaking up about this?

I figure Arc's reasoning must go something like this: Carl started off really terrible in CT and the players made him awesome, so if we make him even worse now, he'll balance out. There is no other explanation. With the changes as they are, it seems like they're making Carl less technical and less interesting, while overcompensating wildly for an infinite he doesn't have anymore. If this goes through as it is, it will be a sad day.

I just realized something. Guess what this means? Air dash quick drop gets nerfed as well.

I really can't believe the direction they've taken with Carl. The 5B and j.2C nerfs completely eliminate my non-loop gameplay. The changes don't come even close to making up for the loss of the loop, in fact, he's worse now than he would have been if they just took out the loop and left everything else the same. Arc just completely castrated Carl.

Ahhh, must have missed the corner part. The two look the same in notation. Yeah, with that particular positioning it's inescapable.

Unless someone else has discovered something, I'm pretty sure the whiff loop is escapable by everyone but Tager if you time the throw escape late enough. On a seperate note, I'll post a mixup setup I have grown fond of recently: You can do a tricky to predict double overhead from sandwich if you don't allecan 2C at the proper height. The easiest way is 2a, j.2C, j.A, j.B. What will happen is Carl will pop up just a tiny bit from the blocked j.2C, causing fuzzy guard and allowing you to very quickly do another air move when they may expect you to allecan and go low. Nirvana will sometimes end up on the same side of the opponent as you if you keep D released. So for me it usually goes: (sandwich pressure)>2a, j.2C, j.A, j.B, land, 2B, 3C > IAD teleport loop setup.

Throw break and air dash will only work if the opponent is either too low to the ground when you grab them, or too far away. Different characters have different distances they need to be away to escape. With the bumper in place, however, I can see Bang being able to get out at a much closer distance than other characters.

If the opponent hasn't used their burst yet, it can be used as a great trap. I find quite often if you can predict they will burst and use it, it will hit them right after their invincibility frames and cause some good damage, sometimes finishing them off if they waited too long.

I've been trying to find another loop on Ragna that can work in place of the bounce loop. It seems that the light character loop (low grab>8D>AD>B+C~8D>6A~8D>etc) works for about the first half of the combo, but since the orb will hit Ragna twice instead of just once, I think only 1 6A~8D is possible instead of the usual 2. The timing on the 8D needs to be slightly different on Ragna it seems, since he will bounce even if you hit it later than the bounce timing on other characters. Basically I just release D after inputting the grab and it seems to work properly. Going to check to see if this changes the escape-ability of the combo at all. Update: Scratch that, the extra hit doesn't influence the tech window, you can do the full Jin combo on Ragna as well if you time it slightly differently. His hitbox also seems more forgiving than Jin's in terms of how low he can fall before you need to grab again. I'll check for any escape windows. Update the II: I found escape points for Ragna if he's not positioned perfectly during the dash grabs, or following the 6A~8D>j.B+C reset. I'm testing out some different timings, but the clap loop in general is not looking good for Ragna.

The reason it's in the character specific combos is for filler, so it's possible you could substitute it for one of the other relaunch methods. After a while, 6A~8D will become techable, and that's really the whole reason it's necessary right now. I know with Jin at least you move to the trickier 2C~8D relaunch for a couple of reps until resorting to using a RC. The main problem with that is the low distance from the ground that is needed, but I think it would be possible on the characters that had bounces in their combo. I'll see if I can come up with anything.