Various Kae Stuff

Hi.
For those who don't know me, I'm a rather dedicated Kae player clocking in at around 1400 games total with just Kae alone.
Some consider me pretty good but I'm too humble to accept that straight forward as there's always something you can be learning, no matter where you're at in a fighting game. Personally dissatisfied tournament showings and a "let's throw the game to dodge stuff instead because that's probably more fun than fighting this matchup" complex have led me to personally believe I'm actually garbage but hey let's not be pessimistic here. I'm here to talk about the apparent always optimistically arson loving reploid, Kae.

With that being said, I feel as if I've dissected Kae thoroughly enough (beyond most people's first impressions) that I'm able to talk confidently about things she needs help with, things that are just too strong, and where she is heading in terms of playstyle development. By no means do I expect anyone to agree with this instantaneously or at all, but at the very least, I ask that you read everything and try to understand where I'm coming from.

NEEDS
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- wpS hyper, both of them. The non-blazing one just gives you small temporary knockback and an extra 8 seconds of blazing. For one meter, that's pretty unimpressive. I suggest dropping a heatpool at her current location upon use, thus guaranteeing a blazing hit on her opponent. Alternatively, you could experiment with adding super armor for a brief while after activating it, but this is more of a silly concept and if anything you should probably go with the first solution. As for the blazing one, it's damage is only about 50 more than dash hyper (which is the far better hyper due to how fast it comes out) and the cross-screen knockback it provides is super situational and generally counter-productive. It's pretty easy to break out of too due to the delay before it actually goes off during "the quick kae salute". With all of this in mind, ramping up the damage would probably be enough. Make it clear that the blazing wpS hyper is the "high risk, high damage" option while wpA hyper (dash hyper) is the "low/quick risk, lower damage" option. That would then give the two hypers a big enough of a difference to consider using one over the other.

- Accel hyper. Most accel hypers in this game are memes and not at all worth it. I can get plenty more damage out by chaining any other hyper together for the same meter cost than I can in the single hit of an accel. It being unavoidable if caught is cool, but the range is really short (DO NOT INCREASE) and while the explosion is cool/satisfying, using the move itself isn't/just a waste (if that makes any sense)

WANTS
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- Knife damage scaling with heat. (it's locked to 40 damage regardless of blazing/nonblazing/enemy heat status right now) Any move not scaling with heat just feels weird to me. It wouldn't have to be much, putting it to just 50 would probably work.

- Dashing Knife hyper knives to bounce twice (would definitely assist in it being considered as a viable hyper option more)

- Tap wpA VERY SLIGHTLY, ONLY IF IRU TRAP HEALTH ISN'T TOUCHED. Kae really needs a reliable non-hyper way to get through those things and no, clones don't accomplish that as easily as one would think. Using clones requires you to be near such traps, thus putting you in danger of accidentally dashing into them instead, which results in a very heavy punish. I would still argue that Iru's traps should really be changed over tap wpA, but I'm not here to talk about Iru. I would also like to note how awfully low on the wants list this is because again, this move is perfectly fine as is and otherwise should not be touched.

OVERTUNED
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- Kae melee range (only a very, very slight reduction; most of her damage/follow ups rely on her being able to land this after all but being able to land this from pretty far away is slightly ridiculous). This is suggested due to the toxic nature that staggering in this game provides, whether it be through Sora/Kae/anyone else who happens to have it. More on staggering is gone over under MIXED.

MIXED FEELINGS
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- Clones. I almost put this in overtuned but the more I thought about it, the more mixed I became. I also put this first under this category because this is a pretty hot topic on the controversial list and I don't want to make a nice partially thorough post like this without mentioning something towards them. The clone buff was appreciated as quality of life and they're a reliable way for Kae to build meter. As much as I appreciate the buffed clones being able to now handle more toxic matchups slightly easier, the buff was rather out of left field and feels kind of unnecessary? When spammed frequently, a clone's presence has insanely high zone control that feels weird for the character. I get that it's part of what she does, and the actual intention is to be honest and use it for Iru/Kyoko/etc or to set it up for better links between melee and knives, but a few players have won entire matches using just clones. I would argue it's just because they aren't respecting clone space or don't know how to handle it as personally, even in Kae mirrors (as that's the only way I get to experience fighting clones online), I've never had such an issue with them. Even if it just was because Kae has a high tap-dash speed, you just generally "oh it's a small area I don't go in, it's no different than Iru/Kyoko/Sham I guess. The double hit also allows for an easy meme infinite against beginner players. At the same time, if the buff gets reverted, then clone goes back to being "eh" outside of its high meter gain as knives are just generally better despite being ballistics. This is firmly mixed to me as I both like and hate the change presented in the previous patch. It felt like an honest change but there's so much abuse with it going around that I just don't know anymore.

- Staggering in general, not just to Kae's melee but that's the one I'll be talking about. Hitstun is cool and allows for combos so definitely keep that, but staggering just feels like exploiting some sort of bug even though it probably isn't. It isn't even useful for Kae most of the time either; it's just a meme that pubstomps beginner players who don't know how to break out of it. That's a hot take to some people and let me explain. Staggering to three hits and quick tap dashing enables you to quickly re-enter melee. However, there's an easy window during this period where you're dashing where the opponent can half-shield or dash away; it's quite easy to exploit or defend against once you know about it. As Kae in particular is highly vulnerable to half-shielding (something I'll go over in other), as a Kae player it makes you rethink most of the time on whether or not it's even worth it to begin with or to just end the melee with a hyper/whatever else. The end result just ends up being super toxic to new players learning the game which I'm not sure is a great idea. Closing this block, if this isn't handled properly and/or affects something else of a character's kit, then things are going to radically change probably for the worse. If this is explored at all, be very, very, VERY careful.

Quick Band-aid Revision: I'm well aware of how integral staggering is in general to Kae due to its convenient ability to chain itself from one melee combo to the next. Despite the small window existing, the punishes made by characters that usually get trapped in these (slower characters + Nath) are either nonexistent or nearly negligibly small most of the time. My points here were mainly about it being an extremely toxic concept to have in the game in general. Buffing the other characters who struggle with it would probably be a good idea, but I'm not sure if movement/dash speed is the proper way to go. Outside of those characters, its predictability goes up the more general skill a player has, but by no means is it still impossible to land and is still recommended to use for mix-ups. It's just made more difficult and this isn't something that needs to be improved upon.

OTHER
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- Dash hyper. It's reliable, fast, bread and butter, and if this gets nerfed Kae is going to drop in any popularity severely. At the same time, if it gets buffed, she's going to be way, way too strong. Part of me wants to say it's slightly a bit overtuned, but it's Kae's only consistent reliable hyper plus it's really, really easy to shield break, so it makes up for itself. Nerfing a single item also hurts a player far more than buffing everything else (loss aversion), so I want to say apply fixes elsewhere and if this hyper somehow becomes a consistent standout problem, then address it.

- I'd rank the knife stuff in NEEDS instead of WANTS but knives kind of help confirm the start of melee (or other) followups, so while they aren't entirely garbage, a few quality of life stuff probably wouldn't hurt.

- Don't touch any of the wpA stuff outside of the WANTS dashing knife hyper. It's all in a really solid state and again, the wpA slight buff suggestion in WANTS is only if various trap health isn't adjusted.

I've dashed this part off because it's a huge wall of text and there's a bit of cohesive rambling in there. I've already gone over move stuff and this next segment dives into a lot of points on why I believe Kae is in a slightly lower spot on a tier list than what most players are giving her credit for. You're free to stop reading here, thanks for doing so. If you want to keep continuing, go on ahead.
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- Current state of Kae overall PART A: Starting off with a hot take that conflicts with a few frequent players because I'm going to explain myself soon: She's Mid-High (Read: not Mid to High as in the range, Mid-High as in the higher end of mid)That being said, I would still say she's in a pretty good spot with weak damage pre-200% and honest damage post-200%. Player skill aside, her biggest downside is that she only gets that damage once she's 200% (thus putting her at risk of taking more damage) and that doesn't guarantee what percent heat her opponent is at. Her high tap-dash speed offsets some of this risk. While she has tools to increase their heat, heatpool is oftentimes unreliable as they'll avoid it entirely (kicking players into the heat pool helps significantly but it's easier said than done on non-beginner players) while the other option is to spend 1 meter while in blazing to heat them up. Kae's damage output relies heavily on the opponent being at high heat. If she is unable to accomplish this, then she's actually useless. It's a known fact that the wiki is outdated on this game, but it currently states something similar to what I just said about Kae's over-reliability on blazing to accomplish honest damage. Upon joining I thought this was true, partially due in part to me not knowing how outdated that wiki really was. After playing Kae for a considerable amount of time, I'm almost entirely convinced now that the statement it makes isn't false. If the Good Future were to hit (see Part B), then Kae, while not utterly doomed thanks to her versatility and just general "one of the most honestly balanced characters in the game", is going to have a more difficult time. In my opinion, predictions, and player skill, this will then result, through the two futures mentioned in the next part, in where I think Kae actually stands.

- Current state of Kae overall PART B: I split this up because I'm talking in a more general sense about the game for a bit then relating it to Kae afterwards. I've often said that there are two futures to this game, and mimicking Sonic CD: The Good Future and The Bad Future. Let's talk about the Bad Future first. It's the JP Timeout meta. It's stalling the entire three minutes and winning by a health lead. Kae having the highest tap dash speed in the game (almost a whole 2 points ahead of anyone else) definitely enables her to do this with ease. On the flip side, when fighting against more cancer matchups such as Iru, Kyoko (post pylon setup), and Sumika, it becomes increasingly more difficult to approach and gain the health lead for yourself. It becomes a painful war of attrition as you abuse the almost-guaranteed 420 melee damage at the start of the round then try to not get hit for three minutes. At 200% heat or higher, that means nearly every hit will make you lose. With losing the health lead, you have no choice but to get it back, and generally that is going to cost you the round. Not to mention, it just isn't fun to watch or play for either player; timeout really is the bad future. On the other side we have the Good Future that I like to call Shield Wars. This involves intense half shield usage where the main goal is to spend most of your meter breaking your opponent's shields and following up with the appropriate punish. On paper, this is highly exciting for Kae. She's really good in close quarters and getting good at doing this is already required to be great on the character. It makes for a great spectator show and, in my opinion, demonstrates skill and knowledge of the game much better than the Bad Future. I really, really, love this future. But then, something comes up. All of Kae's hypers are really easy to punish through shield breaking. With a Shield Wars meta, for optimal play, every time you use any hyper you run a very high risk of taking damage. Not just taking damage, as discussed in Part A, players need to be in blazing for honest or reliable damage output. In this future, blazing Kae is a crippled playstyle. It isn't dead entirely because A) We aren't there yet and B) because we aren't there yet, I don't have the necessary data required to make a firm case for it, only enough current data for a proper speculation. Our ability as a community `to` get there depends on everyone's shield breaking ability. Right now I feel as if that ability is lacking and most people don't punish Kae properly enough. I argue that once people do have that ability and Kae does start getting properly punished enough, more people will soon realize that she really isn't an extremely good character, but rather just a good character. Only time will tell.

There's plenty more I could write and it's likely I'll be frequently revising or adding to this, at least for a little while. I'm even in the process of writing an appropriate guide with almost (let's be serious there's no way I'm going to remember everything the first version, I'm just a human) a complete listing of information. Kae is just a really fun character to me, and again, I'm glad that she is in a rather nice spot in this game. It's relieving to accidentally pick a good main for once. A melee-centric character with a focus on dodging in a bullet hell is just satisfying when it works, which I feel like has been accomplished in this game. Having a clear identity, unlike a handful of other characters in this game, certainly helps too.

Thanks for Reading
Last Edited: July 29th 10:31AM EST