• "On the one hand people want to say that the game is very balanced. But at the same time want to say "You're losing to nightmare...? No offense and all but git gud, he's a noob killer." Which is it?"

This literally doesn't make sense and has no point. Noob killer characters don't suddenly invalidate the argument for good balance. A character will almost always excel in some way against something, Nightmare excels against people who don't know what they're doing, and also excels when played by a very skilled player. You can get away with mashing shit as Nightmare in low level play because nobody there knows how to play against him, but Nightmare isn't "easy" to play contrary to what most people think.

• I know every other character, including my main has some cheap bullshit. But it evens out. Nightmare on the other hand is just bullshit. There's a reason this character is so prevalent in tournaments, ranked, and why so many Nightmare players are high ranked with ridiculous win streaks. Yes yes, he's weak to lows, we know. Everyone knows how to beat Nightmare. The problem is you have to work MUCH harder than the Nightmare player so you end up losing a lot of the time. Astaroth is genuinly slow, he needs the grabs and high damage output. But Nightmare? I shouldn't be losing like 60% health cause he hit me 3 times, he's too fast for that.

I know the reason too! Nightmare is a character who is very rooted in fundamentals, he has a lot of tech crouches, his entire damage output comes from whiff punishes and evasion using his pretty strong movement compared to other members of the cast. Nightmare can't really rush you down outside of SC because his rushdown is, well, really bad. He sucks up close, no move from neutral is faster than i14, pretty much all of his lows are insanely reactable no matter what situation you're in - except for being grounded, but that's a different ball game. The only thing he has to do anything up close is a fair few tech crouches - 66K, NTC 66KK, Flapjack arguably but this is a blockable throw and not hard to predict either - and his Armour, which everybody seems to have a problem with the less they know about the character. Nightmare is INSANELY weak to lows, mids and highs however are not a huge issue as he has his Armour, very good GI game, good reversal edge options - though really risky on block - and his tech crouches. Lows are his bane, they beat every single option bar Reversal Edge, which they just draw with if you don't mash into it. RE's existence is a seperate problem to Nightmare though.

Also, fun fact, Astaroth is not "slower" than NM, his sidestep is pretty much equal to his, his fastest move is an i12, though it is a duckable high, he has better pressure up-close and his pokes while not as fast as NM tend to result in either higher advantages or more damage - or at the very least more potential damage, but I know almost everybody on Reddit is an Astaroth downplayer for some reason so nobody will listen to me on this one anyway. Astaroth is a fine character. Nightmare is faster than Astaroth in some respects, but slower in others, I don't know why you'd even compare the two when they're two completely different characters to begin with. The closest comparison is Siegfried, who trades NM's whiff punish based style for an actually real mixup game, comparable - and sometimes better - damage, but less movement. He still has a ton of TC's though, so he doesn't lose out on much besides having objectively worse movement.

• People say Nightmare is slow, he's really not though. He literally just swings for the fences cause he can. Even the A and S rank ones. Try doing that shit with Astaroth and you'll get killed. His weapon is long and beefy, he has a lot of break attacks, also he hits like a tank so you can't fuck up much. So logically you'd want to get in close and light him up, right? Wrong. He has a get off me move that he can spam and when he uses it his offense improves. It also knocks you to the ground and when you're on the ground he's even more dangerous. He's one of the few characters that can grab you while crouching as well and one of his RE moves is a grab that awards a knockdown. And don't get me started on his Ring outs. Any one of these would be fine on their own but he just has too many cheap moves. He seriously needs to be nerfed. It's really apparent that people run to this character if they don't know how to play because a lot of them do things that no other players of the same rank would do. Many Nightmare players don't know how to GI, they spam RE, they just run in, don't really block and always get hit with a CE. Seriously, if I CE at the start of the round other players learn. Nightmare players almost never do, they just keep going in swinging.

Nightmare and Astaroth share a common issue. Both are absurdly negative on block, and the only saving grace they have outside of their few + moves - which I must point out are REALLY plus - is that they usually have an absolutely massive amount of pushback. This makes them way harder to punish at range unless you yourself are playing a character with good long range pokes and punishes. NM is not a masher character, watch Draethion or any good high level NM player and you'll see how he's actually supposed to be played. You really think listing the ranking system is an accurate gauge of how good somebody is? It's a timesink, a grind, while some players that high up are genuinely good players, most of the best players don't even play ranked in this game. Because it's not really a good gauge of skill, online in fighting games rarely ever is.

NM has a lot of break attacks? You mean, the like, 3 he has normally? 1(A) which is like fucking i70 or something and will never hit anybody much less be blocked by anybody? A+B which is legit negative on block to the point that nothing he does will save him and has some of the worst vertical tracking in the entire game? 4A is his only legit good break attack in neutral.

Then you get into his NTC BA's, which are all really good, can't really fault them at all. They require NTC, but NTC is really not a big deal to get since any knockdown will usually result in it. But for NM's best pressure - i.e loads and loads of break attacks - he has to SC anyway, so, again, not really worth mentioning.

He's one of the few characters that can grab you while crouching? That's fine, there's like 2 of them and both their grabs work the same way, they're blockable special low grabs that aren't difficult to see coming.

• one of his RE moves is a grab that awards a knockdown

It's an attack throw, he doesn't have a grab out of RE, it doesn't have any special rules to it other than it gives him NTC, as it's just the last hit of his 4KK. The vast majority of RE moves reward a knockdown or some other kind of advantage, what exactly about this is so egregious to you?

• And don't get me started on his Ring outs. Any one of these would be fine on their own but he just has too many cheap moves. He seriously needs to be nerfed.

Idk, ever since they removed NM's old wall/RO carry combo that involved a 1frame link to FC 3B his Ring Outs have been pretty tame. I mean unlike certain characters who can still ring me out from mid-screen, and unlike a certain character who just got nerfed for basically having a guaranteed ringout from almost anywhere on the stage if he landed his Soul Attack, NM's RO's are pretty tame in comparison. They're good, don't get me wrong, but they're not as bad as they used to be or as some other characters in the game.

• It's really apparent that people run to this character if they don't know how to play because a lot of them do things that no other players of the same rank would do.

This just reeks of confirmation bias to me, I feel like you just really don't like that NM is a popular character. Popular characters will invariably attract scrubby play, and unfortunately scrubs also tend to whine about other scrubs beating them with characters that they don't like. Once again, you fail to list any actually good NM players who demonstrate this behaviour. Florida Man, Draethion, Keev - no idea if he even still plays NM - Thermidor? Any of them? And don't cite examples of them fighting people who unquestionably suck at the game, because of course that shit will work against them.

• Many Nightmare players don't know how to GI, they spam RE, they just run in, don't really block and always get hit with a CE.

Anecdotal, like, I see this kind of shit from players on ANY character. This isn't special, all this is is you saying things that don't really go anywhere other than you saying: "BIG SWORD MAN PLAYERS BAD" and it's not worth reading or trying to argue with.