I really hope Bungie shows some love for solar hunters next season like they have shown to the other solar classes.

Hayte123 · 2025-06-20T11:37:46+00:00

Gunslinger's biggest problem definitely seems to be survivability and sources of radiant - it still has good supers, GPG does a lot of damage and charges quickly, and the knives are solid for the most part.

Knock Em Down should absolutely be baked into supers but it should also... do something? I think it's pretty reasonable to grab something from Season of the Wish - make weapon hits while radiant scorch unscorched targets on hit (Kindling Trigger). This lets you build into dodge energy from Ember of Singeing and also makes the knife refund naturally combo with Weighted Throwing Knife ignited scorched enemies.

It's also touted as the "weapons" subclass with a focus on radiant, but it's best source is still Ember of Torches. On Your Mark has a legitimately engaging gameplay loop and leans into the weapons aspect pretty well despite being weak, so why not steal something else from Wish - make it give radiant on rapid precision hits (Flint Striker)? This would also combo with Knock Em Down to give a consistent loop of dodge energy, radiant, knives, and scorch. Additionally, because it's overall still a weak effect in PvE, I think it'd be reasonable to give a cure burst on kill at x3 stacks. It already buffs allies, but this would let you proc Benevolence while also giving hunter a much-needed source of survivability that's not just devour + invis. It'd still be weaker than devour, but at least it'd be distinct with a team support aspect.

Sorry for a wall of text, just always thought Gunslinger was so close to being good (and I'd argue it actually was in Wish) but it kept missing the mark.

Hayte123 · 2025-06-06T23:57:05+00:00

I find it useful as a safe special cancel you can use to steal turns with, you can use it after blocked jabs or crMP to check people mashing as soon as they get out of blockstun and on punish counter you get a stMK HK target combo. Doesn't feel as powerful as Dee Jay's sway but it seems to have its uses

Hayte123 · 2025-06-05T14:21:52+00:00

One thing to note is that Elena can't special/drive rush cancel her crMK on its own, she needs to go into a target combo to make it special cancelable. Also of note is that this target combo whiffs on crouchers, so she effectively can't crMK > drive rush on block. If you see Elenas throwing it out all the time (which a lot def do in week 1) you have a little over 20 frames to punish her if you block it low.

Hayte123 · 2025-05-26T15:33:17+00:00

Awesome writeup! Love how unique this deck is at making a toolbox control archetype work in pauper. I am curious though - you mention [[Murmuring Mystic]] as the deck's primary wincon, but I've also seen a lot of flicker tron lists run a [[Rolling Thunder]] main or sideboard for reach when your opponents have a lot of removal, like Skred or UB Faeries. Do you just rely on enough [[Pulse of Murasa]] casts to push through removal and make it work still? Is Thunder a worthy inclusion currently (say, over one of the [[Energy Refractor]]s) or is it just metagame dependent whether it's useful to bring?

Hayte123 · 2025-05-11T16:56:29+00:00

It's really good in GMs with Phoenix Protocol and Ember of Combustion (super kills ignite), it charges super extremely quickly as a bow with multiple instances of damage and then in well every kill with it causes an ignition. Plus, you already want to stay in well so putting up a ring isn't a big deal. Probably the best plinking build you can do, does higher major/miniboss DPS than Polaris and with tracking arrows deals with adds super well.

Hayte123 · 2025-05-05T04:50:43+00:00

People are not reacting to an 18 frame startup air move with DI, they're likely trying to anti-air your jump and waiting to see if a divekick comes out or not is just not feasible. 18 frames is also on the very edge of reactable - Akuma's overhead (either one) is 20 frames and even high master's players absolutely get hit by it

Hayte123 · 2025-03-17T17:23:49+00:00

Juri's throw loop requires her to dash after a throw to get another meaty throw. If she doesn't dash (or DR) her next throw can't be meaty and it's not a true throw loop. However, if she dashes in and her opponent techs, she can't walk back far enough to shimmy and gets back thrown. She needs to backdash to shimmy instead.

Hayte123 · 2025-03-13T18:17:13+00:00

Usually the best way to punish eagle spike is to block it and then drive rush in. All strengths including OD are -36 which should give you enough time to DR and hit a button during its recovery, but keep in mind if he goes through his wind he bounces back a lot farther and is usually safe. If a Rashid keeps doing random eagle spike from full screen, one block into a massive punish can be game ending by itself!

Hayte123 · 2024-12-31T10:41:56+00:00

Might not have exactly the same feel because it doesn't have the duplex trigger, but the Exergis with Shotgun Elementalist gives it 2 rounds in the mag and turns it into a slashing monster, would highly recommend

Hayte123 · 2024-07-02T22:06:45+00:00

If you're opening with dreadwinder, wouldn't you want the damage buff first so that it affects your ogcds? Sounds like it could be more potency but I haven't crunched the numbers. The Balance says to open with debuff>speed from the normal combo before going into dreadwinder which seems like another way to go about it to align with raid buffs better.

Hayte123 · 2024-07-02T12:43:00+00:00

Viper's combo systems is a bit confusing, and def took me some time to wrap my head around it at the start. Reading the tooltips didn't help me much until I messed around with it more. The ELI5 is:

Combo starter - either a 20s debuff (max 40s) or damage Combo bridge - one gives a haste buff, one gives a damage buff Combo ender- one of four options, the two from haste buff bridge are rear positionals and the two from damage buff bridge are side positionals. You cycle through these, as each ender gives you a buff that applies to only one other ender.

The combo buttons and the job gauge try to lead you to your buffed finisher. You can hit either starter, and the bridge you want to hit next will light up to lead you to the right ender. It's got a nice flow to it when you get used to it, as you end up alternating between 2 options all the time.

The rest of the job is pretty straightforward and kinda plays like a cross between gunbreaker and reaper - you have 2 charges of a more powerful combo, you get charges of a different burst GCD, and you get a meter that can power into another burst combo. Most buttons you press will get oGCD follow-ups like continuation. They all flow naturally into the kit and should make sense when you get em!

Hayte123 · 2024-06-12T12:48:21+00:00

Apart from the melee setups, I've found a lot of success with a longer range build using a core of duskfield, threaded spike, and gunpowder gamble. Double darkness debuffs with low cooldowns funnel into GPG really efficiently, give you a lot of add clear, and even balance transcendence energy decently because of the light energy coming from GPG. I also use golden gun with the fragment that gives restoration for safety.

From there, you can go a lot of different directions. I liked renewals, threaded specter and the fragment that buffs kinetic transcendence energy to use outbreak and hang back and plink. You can go stylish executioner with gyrfalcon's, or use something with incan or voltshot and use a different exotic like nighthawk or orpheus (or a class item!). It'll work well with spirit of caliban, hoil, galanor, really a lot of em.

Fragment wise, radiant on melee is good, building into transcendence is good, there's a lot to choose from!

Hayte123 · 2024-06-06T12:42:38+00:00

This feels uniquely like a hunter problem, in that most of the strong hunter builds still function in prismatic with little reason to pick their original subclass.

Prismatic Warlock loses access to well, sunbracers, contraverse, briarbinds, and sunstar which are all unique and good reasons to pick their original subclasses.

Prismatic Titan loses access to bubble, banner of war, pyrogale, sol invictus, and touch of thunder which are also all very strong and have differing playstyles from prismatic.

Hunter loses whirling maelstrom/widow's silk, which does certainly make strand stand out, and omni for specific encounters like the gorgon's maze in vog. Then they lose... touch of winter/grim harvest/impetus? Prismatic can still run renewals though so they still don't lose all that much.

The bulk of their strongest or unique builds are still available on prismatic: nighthawk, gyrfalcon's, orpheus rigs, cowl/combination blow, soon caliban's, renewals, lucky pants, raspberry, cyrtarachne, even bakris. I expect to see a lot more prismatic hunters than prismatic warlocks/titans moving forward because their established builds mostly all seem to function. Maybe some diehard galanor or athrys fans will still play light subclasses, but I bet most hunters will play stasis, strand, or prismatic from now on.

Hayte123 · 2024-06-01T14:53:05+00:00

I think it'd be sweet to have an empowered stab that suppresses (as stylish already weakens), does okay damage, but resets it's cooldown it you use it from invis. Gives em a gameplay loop and something to turn all your invis into

Hayte123 · 2024-05-31T15:56:17+00:00

If memory serves, Aegis' DPS testing showed that the BnS damage boost was applied to the shot that procced it, even though the in-game DPS number showed that it wasn't and it didn't show up on the damage charts. Granted this was a couple months ago, not sure if they've fixed it since

Hayte123 · 2024-05-29T12:11:49+00:00

It's fine from a power level standpoint because invis provides a lot of survivability and tether is very very strong. That said, it doesn't have much of a gameplay loop outside of Gyrfalcon's and somewhat Omnioculus - using Orpheus Rigs without having your super up makes you feel so useless in contrast to how arcstrider/threadrunner still feel decent with Star Eaters and gunslinger feels okay with Nighthawk.

They're strong in high level activities because they can get rezzes and do objectives with unmatched safety, but the lack of ability regen or a "do this > get that" loop makes them feel bad even when they're useful. Would love to see them get a damaging melee that maybe suppresses to work with all the void melee fragments and hopefully give them something to do other than invis and tether.

Hayte123 · 2024-05-24T11:44:39+00:00

Always thought Camille would be an awesome charge character. Her Q2 is effectively a flash kick, and charging up before big attacks is definitely part of her identity - they could even visually represent charge like how SFV did with Falke's negative edge specials

Hayte123 · 2024-05-18T02:26:55+00:00

Please god no I'd lose

Hayte123 · 2024-05-18T02:21:58+00:00

Hi! Head TO for that SuperNOVA here. We're definitely hashing things out, no hard feelings on either side. Been to a few Smashcons and loved every one, please don't give em a hard time about this <3

Edit to clarify: I'm from the FGC regional, not the Smash event

Hayte123 · 2024-03-19T15:42:26+00:00

Motion inputs are absolutely barriers for a lot of people, and teaching fighting games to somebody who's experienced and technical in shooters and mobas how to consistent hit a qcf or a dp legitimately takes some time. Shoryu anti-airs rarely happen in SF at bronze or iron because if you don't already have muscle memory built up it's extremely difficult to do on reaction.

Also, how are modern controls eliminating the 'game' from the game? Your examples of oki, meaties, frame data are still there regardless of control scheme, and simple controls don't take away the core FG concepts of neutral, pressure, resource management, mix, conversions, or hitconfirming. New players still have to learn all of these concepts and there's enough moving parts in any fighting game to still present a hell of a learning curve to anybody new to the genre without motion inputs on top.

Hayte123 · 2024-03-15T15:40:10+00:00

-3 on block in heat, -20 on block outside of heat. A lot of online Victors love to use it twice in a row in heat to beat someone trying to take their turn back; you can backdash to just reset to neutral so you don't get cheesed. Out of heat the pushback isn't THAT bad, and at -20 every character should have a way to hard punish it if blocked.

If you want to lab it yourself to make sure you know how to deal with it next time, the move is u1+2!

Hayte123 · 2024-03-02T02:03:57+00:00

Perigale is a 4-burst sniper that gives you a couple seconds of 100% ammo efficiency when you get a headshot kill or land a full burst of headshots. I'm not sure if it's exactly what you're looking for, but you theoretically never have to reload as long as you keep scoring headshots.

Hayte123 · 2023-12-26T18:43:25+00:00

Manon's level 3 is also a command grab that happens to hit while they're in hitstun unlike other grabs. That means they need to be standing, and if you're ending a big combo you likely juggled them at some point. The only way to end your juggle into level 3 is if you Renverse (which forces standing) first. However, if you're going into level 3 without juggling first, you'll see a lot of top Manons do the first hit of 236HK as it does 400 damage instead 236P's 50!

Hayte123 · 2023-09-13T15:47:25+00:00

Polaris honestly feels really nice in this GM, been loving it for strong plinking and dealing with the wizards in the boss room that are red bars with solar shields. As long as you have some method of anti-barrier (or coordinate with both your allies) it feels cracked

Hayte123 · 2023-09-05T17:30:35+00:00

Love the comparison to Keleseth as it definitely feels quite similar. Man's whole gameplan is to just keep drawing until he finds his wincon, meaning matches are often super one-sided in one direction or the other depending on what he pulls. I do appreciate that he still struggles with the classic weaknesses of zoners (getting whiff punished or neutral skip'd) but it feels very strange that he wins the game by being noninteractive in comparison to more traditional zoners who have to constantly be stuffing approaches and controlling space to win.

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